42 THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NOKTH ATLANTIC. 



Humpback and Scrag whales under one name as in Gmelin's work. Turton omits 

 all bibliographical references. 1 



While these various editions and translations of Linnaeus's works were in 

 course of publication, numerous other systematic works on a more or less independent 

 basis made their appearance. One of the earliest of these was O. F. Miiller's Pro- 

 dromus of the Zoology of Denmark (including Greenland), published in 1776. 2 It 

 is a list of species under Latin binomials and polynomials, or diagnoses, with the 

 Norwegian, Icelandic, and Greenlandic names added. The baleen whales are all 

 included in the genus Balcena, and the following have Greenlandic names : B. 

 mysticetus, Arbec or Arbavirksoak [Bowhead] ; B. physalus, Keporkak, 3 or 

 Keporkarsoak [Finback] ; B. albicans, Killelluak [White whale]. 



The next important systematist, Erxleben, prefaces the list of cetacea in his ex- 

 cellent Systema Regni Animalis (1777) 4 with the remark that the species are but 

 imperfectly known. The baleen whales are all retained in the genus JBalcena, 

 and the species are the Linnsean ones with the addition of B. gibbosa. Of B. 

 mysticetus he gives the habitat as toward the North Pole, chiefly about Green- 

 land and Spitzbergen, and among his numerous authorities cites Egede, Anderson, 

 and Cranz. He is in doubt about the Nordcaper, and does not separate it for- 

 mally from mysticetus. B. physalus is given as occurring " in the European and 

 American Ocean," and the authorities cited include Egede (Finne-fiske), Anderson, 

 and Cranz (Finnfisch). Erxleben is in doubt about the Pflockfisch (Dudley's 

 Humpback), but thinks it may belong with physalus, which is, of course, incorrect. 

 The habitat given is " about New England." He cites it at second hand from Klein, 

 Anderson, and others. The habitat of B. boops is in " the northern ocean." 

 Anderson and Cranz (Jupiterfisch) are cited among the authorities. B. gibbosa is 

 Dudley's Scrag whale, which he takes at second hand from Klein, Anderson, and 

 other compilers. No habitat is given. 5 



Three years later, in 1780, Otto Fabricius, who was for several years a 

 missionary in Greenland, published his well-known Fauna Groenlandica, a very 

 concise and judicious work, and one whose influence on zoological nomenclature 

 has continued to the present day. In treating of the cetaceans it is hardly to 

 be expected that he would escape errors entirely, especially considering the back- 

 ward state of cetology at the time, but his descriptions are for the most part 

 remarkably clear. 



1 For Czenpinski's Totius Regni Animalis Genera in Classes et Ordines LinnEeana methodo 

 digesta, 1778, see Allen's Bibliography, p. 468, No. 346. 



a MULLER, O. F., Zoologiae Danicae Prodromus, 1776, pp. viii, 6-8. 



'On p. viii of the introduction Miiller transfers this name to B. boops [Humpback] on the 

 authority of Fabricius. 



'Pp. 601-611. 



5 Dr. J. A. Allen in his Bibliography of Cetacea, p. 467, No. 341, remarks that B. gibbosa of 

 Erxleben is not the Scrag whale of Dudley, " as usually stated, which is one of the ' species obscuraa ' 

 not formally recognized." This is an error. The only one of the " species obscurae " from Dudley 

 cited by Erxleben, on p. 617 is the " Dudleji Balcena Klein." This is Dudley's sperm whale. On 

 the other hand, all the bibliographical citations under B. gibbosa and the diagnosis refer back to 

 Dudley's Scrag whale. 



