THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 49 



a few references to American baleen whales. The work is a comprehensive one, 

 and contains a summary of most of the important observations previously pub- 

 lished. The treatment of species is conservative, but the conclusions reached have 

 not all been confirmed by later researches. The whalebone whales are placed in 

 two genera, "the rorquals" and "the whales." For the former the new genus 

 Rwqvalus is established, and the species recognized are JR. boops, R. musculus, 

 and R. antarcticus. 



Under Rorqiialus, Cuvier mentions the observations of Dudley, Egede, and 

 Anderson, which have to do with American whales. Regarding Dudley he says: 



" Dudley speaks also of two whales with folds under the body, and a dorsal 

 protuberance : the ' Finback whale,' of which the dorsal fin is 2 feet long, and the 

 pectoral fins from 6 to 7 feet; the 'Humpback whale,' which, in place of a fin, has 

 a simple hump a foot high and pointed behind. Its pectoral fins are sometimes 18 

 feet long and very white. But these ideas, derived from Dudley, seem to have 

 been poorly appreciated up to this time." 1 



This is an odd remark, as Cuvier himself seems not to have appreciated the 

 singularity (if a whale with pectoral fins "18 feet long and very white." He makes 

 no further reference to it, except to remark that " the ' Humpback whale ' of the same 

 author [Dudley] is not a whale, but a rorqual; for he says, in explicit terms, that 

 this cetacean has longitudinal folds like that of which he speaks immediately 

 before (the ' Finback whale ') on the belly and sides, from the head to the orio-in of 

 the pectoral fins." * 



Regarding Dudley's description of the "Scrag whale" Cuvier remarks: 



" For ourselves, we only see in it a very insignificant note, which probably 

 contains an error in citing the protuberances of the back as osseous; it only serves 

 to arouse suspicions as to the value of the characters drawn from these protuber- 

 ances, and further to make it doubtful whether this cetacean was not a rorqual, for 

 the 'Finback whale' to which Dudley compares his 'Scrag whale' is a genuine 

 rorqual." ; 



Cuvier rejects the Nordcaper as a separate species. 



The epoch-making works of Eschricht cover the period from 1840 to 1873. 

 He investigated many phases of cetology beyond the scope of the present paper. 

 On account of the diversity of the subjects treated of and the immense mass of 

 facts accumulated, it is very difficult to summarize his work. The larger part of 

 his investigations relate to baleen whales, and much of his material was American, 

 having been obtained by Captain Holboll in Greenland. This material consisted 

 chiefly of specimens of the Greenland Humpback, both skeletons of adult individu- 

 als, foetuses, and anatomical preparations. Many of the skeletons were distributed to 

 other European museums beside those of Copenhagen, and the descriptions of the 

 Humpback published by Van Beneden and other European writers are drawn from 

 these American specimens. 



The main body of Eschricht's work is the series of six essays in the Royal 



1 CUVIER, F., De 1'Histoire Naturelle des Cetac^s, 1836, p. 309. 

 1 Op. fit., p. 355. 



