CHAPTER II. 



A CHRONOLOGICAL ACCOUNT OF IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 

 NATURAL HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICAN WHALEBONE WHALES. 



Knowledge of whales, as of other animals, owes its principal advancement to 

 the observations of three classes of persons, the explorer and traveller, who 

 notices them casually among the varied wonders of nature ; the naturalist, amateur, 

 or professional ; and the person engaged in, or interested in, industrial pursuits. 



To the casual observations of the earliest discoverers and explorers of America 

 we have already given attention, and in the whale fishery we have no direct interest 

 at present. We shall present, therefore, in this chapter a brief account of American 

 and European writings, whether by naturalists or practical whalemen, which have 

 contributed to a considerable extent to the advancement of knowledge of the whale- 

 bone whales found in North American waters. Writings on the Greenland whale, 

 Balcena mysticetus, will be excepted, because the present work does not cover that 

 species. This exception is an important one, involving a number of early treatises 

 of much value, such as those of Zorgdrager, Scoresby, etc., which contain excellent 

 accounts of the whale fisheries about Greenland and of the habits of the Greenland 

 whale. 



So far as writings of American zoologists are concerned, the number relating 

 to baleen whales is surprisingly small, a fact due no doubt to the great difficulty 

 of assembling and maintaining cetological collections, and the scarcity of opportu- 

 nities for examining living or fresh specimens under favorable conditions. The 

 cetological collections of Europe are for the most part the accumulations of cen- 

 turies. In America, even to-day, such collections are exceedingly meagre, and it is 

 scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, that so few American naturalists have had 

 anything to say about this order of mammals. 



While, as above noted, the present work does not deal with the whale fishery, 

 it should be repeated that some of the most substantial contributions to the natural 

 history of whales have been derived directly or indirectly from persons engaged in, 

 or interested in, that industry, and, indeed, without these treatises cetology would 

 be exceedingly deficient in certain directions. 



1 . Natural Histories and Miscellaneous Contributions. 

 Seventeenth Century. 



The writings of naturalists covering the period between the middle of the 

 sixteenth and the middle of the eighteenth centuries, beginning with the treatises of 

 Rondelet (1554) and Olaus Magnus (1555) and ending with the tenth edition of 



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