Sei't. 25, 1885.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



1 IglH W 



of whales in tlie vicinity of this island, but 

 not pronounced upon it. The whale of the Basques 

 was regarded as extinct, when, on the 14th January, 

 1854, a specimen, accompanied by a calf, showed itself 

 opposite San Sebastian. The mother succeeded in 

 escaping, but the calf was captured. Its external form 

 and a study of its skeleton convinced Eschricht that it 

 belonged to a peculiar species, differing completely 

 from B. iin/siicetas — hence the apellation B. Biscayinsis, 

 introduced by him into the nomenclature. 



Five Balenida", either stranded or captured upon the 

 Atlantic coast of tlie United States between 1862 and 

 1883, iind rdnsiauivd at tirst by Prof. Cope as belonging 

 to a new spn-iis ( /.'. ■' is,: rr/ica), have been found to differ 

 in nowise fniin ilir S:tii Scliustian specimen. 



The cetac.'c;in.s tliat w cru called (jinXutytit by the Greeks 

 and balrna; by the Romans were doubtless large balse- 

 noptera that entered the Mediterranean, and, perhaps, 

 hales (which are sometimes met therein). 



nd II 



[ght 1 



- thff 



. ha 



ted this sea, 

 there 



when, to the great joy of cctologists, a feniak^ was 

 captured in the Bay of Taranto. The length of this was 

 about forty feet. Its relatively slender form, the small 

 size of its head (one-fifth the length of its body), and 

 the shortness of its mouth-plates (numbering 240 on 

 each side), the largest of which was only thirty inches, 

 its falcate pectorals, r,nd its black colour separated it 

 widely from B. mysticetus. Its stomach was entirely 

 empty, and it appeared to have suffered from a long fast. 

 In consequence of this peciiliarity, and from its resem- 



blance to the whales of the [southern hemisphere. Prof. 

 Capellini, of Bologna, believed that it came from this 

 latter region. To him it was, perhaps, a representative 

 of the Indian Ocean species, one nearly unknown tn 

 naturalists, and one that no European museum had tlu- 

 remains of. 



Among other objections to this manner of viewing it, 

 there is one that is very important, viz., it has been well 

 proved that the right whale never passes from one side 

 of the equator to the other, this being for it like a circle 

 of insuperable fire, and that, excejit in very rare cases, 

 it even keeps outside of the tropics. It was more natural 

 to see in the Taranto whale a North Atlantic species 

 that had strayed into the Mediterranean, and this wa>- 

 proved by a comparison with the San Sebastian calf 

 and other skeletons, and by a very complete study by 

 Prof. F. Gasco. According to the latter, the animal 

 could not have been more than three or four years old, 

 judging by its size, and assuming that the female of 

 7). his-r-dynisix (as shown by .several examples) wa.s 

 fifty fiet in leiiirth. A female of this size, taken by 

 the luirpeim (iff tlie coast of New Jersey, was towed 

 to New Yerk in the spring of 1882. This also had 

 a wholly black body. From the figure of it given 

 in the Bullttin of the American Museum of Natunil 

 History (May 1, 1883), it appears to have been more 

 massive than tho Taranto specimen. This relative 

 heaviness i.s, perh.aps, attributable to a difference of age 

 between the two individuals. In .short, compared with 

 known examples, it does not exceed the limits of indi- 

 vidual variation. Thus the whale of the Basques 

 (Sarde, Nordkaper, SUtbah, Bala-na liscayensis, Esch., 

 B. cisarctica, Cope) still existss although represented, 



