ATLANTIC RIGHT-WHALE. 389 



is made of the Nordhval, which appeared in winter, and 

 of the Sletbag, seen only in summer. To the French the 

 more southern species was known as the Sarde, and to the 

 Dutch as the Nordkaper } under which latter name it was 

 mentioned by several naturalists and travellers, as Egede, 

 Crantz, Anderson, and others, who concur in describing 

 it as having a much smaller head than the Greenland 

 species, while its baleen was much shorter ; it yielded less 

 oil, and its skin was invariably disfigured by parasitic 

 Cirripedes, which are never found on B. mysticetus. This 

 ft Nordkaper " seems now to be unknown in the Iceland 

 seas, and Scoresby expressly states that he never met with 

 it in any of his voyages. It seems probable that the 

 "Black Whale" of the temperate shores of North 

 America is identical with this species. It has been named 

 B. cisarctica by Prof. Cope, but he regards it as closely 

 allied to jB. biscayensis " if not the same." MM. Van 

 Beneden and Gervais regard them as identical, but 

 M. Fischer thinks they are probably distinct. 



The notices and documents which establish the fact of 

 the former abundance of the Atlantic Right- Whale in the 

 Bay of Biscay and the English Channel, will be found 

 quoted at length in the memoirs to which we have referred 

 above. In more modern times the occurrences of the 

 animal have been very rare. The most recent, and much 

 the most important, was that of a female, accompanied by 

 a young one, which entered the harbour of St. Sebastian 

 on the 17th January 1854. The mother escaped, but 

 the young one was secured, and it is on this example that 

 our positive knowledge of the species principally rests. 

 Dr. Monedero made a drawing of it, which is engraved in 

 MM. Gervais and Van Beneden's work, and which we 

 have copied as the only authentic representation of the 

 species. The skeleton was also preserved, and was deposited 



