THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WEST- 

 ERN NORTH ATLANTIC, COMPARED 

 WITH THOSE OCCURRING IN EURO- 

 PEAN WATERS; WITH SOME OBSER- 

 VATIONS ON THE SPECIES OF THE 

 NORTH PACIFIC. 



BY FREDERICK W. TRUE, 



HEAD CURATOR, DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY, U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



INTKODUCTION. 



Several years ago I began a study of the species of whalebone whales which 

 frequent the western North Atlantic, with a view of ascertaining the facts regarding 

 their distribution and migrations. I was confronted at once by the uncertainty 

 in the nomenclature of the species frequenting European waters, with which the 

 American forms were known to be closely allied, and my first undertaking was to 

 ascertain the identity of the species described by Linnaeus in the tenth edition of 

 the Systema Naturae. The results of this search for correct scientific names were 

 published in 1898. 1 



Having fixed the names of the European species as far as possible, I next 

 endeavored to locate the material on which the American species described by 

 Cope and other cetologists had been based, and began a comparison of these types 

 and of such other material as existed in the National Museum and other similar 

 establishments in the United States with the European forms. For a considerable 

 time I was so situated as to be unable to work on specimens, and during this 

 period I collected from every available source records of the occurrence of whale- 

 bone whales on the Atlantic coast of North America, beginning with the very 



1 On the nomenclature of the whalebone whales of the tenth edition of Linnaeus's Systema 

 Naturae. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 21, 1898, pp. 617-635, No. 1163. 



1 



