136 



AUSTRALIS, Desmoulins. The Cape Whale. 



Synonyms Baleine du Cap, Cuvier. 



Balcena australis, Desmoulins, Temminck, Gray, Beneden 



and Gervais. 



Eubalcena australis, Gray, S. & W., p. 91 ; Suppl., p. 43. 

 Hunterius TemmincTcii, Gray, S. & W., p. 98 ; Suppl., 



p. 44. 



Caperea antipodarum, Gray, S. &W., p. 101 ; Suppl., p. 45. 

 Balana antipodarum, Beneden & Gervais. 

 Neobalcena marginata, Gray ; Suppl., p. 40. 

 Right whale of the Southern Seas, Bennett, Polach, 



Crowther. 



The Eubalsena australis (the Cape Whale), and the Caperea anti- 

 podarum (the New Zealand Whale) of Dr. Gray, are identical in size, 

 in- colour, in the quality of the baleen, and in the yield of oil. Both 

 display similar habits, partake of the same kind of food, and, to the 

 best of my belief, inhabit the same parallels of southern latitude. They 

 are known to whalers, under the one name, as the Black or the 

 Eight Whale, of the Southern hemisphere. Nevertheless, the two are 

 separated by Dr. Gray and M. Van Beneden into distinct species, from 

 the following slight discrepancies in their structure, which, after all, 

 may be " not greater than are found among different individuals of 

 undoubtedly the same species." Flower. 



Dr. Gray, deprived of other osteological portions, bases his argu- 

 ment upon the form of an ear-bone, so distinctive as to necessitate 

 even the creation of a new genus ; while M. M. Beneden & Gervais, 

 more fortunate in possessing an entire skeleton for examination, wholly 

 regard the ear-bone doctrine as visionary, and rest their claims for 

 separation upon some slight variations in the proportions of the skull 

 and in the number of vertebrae. 



The French naturalists also lay great stress on the individual range 

 of the species, which they most fancifully limit to two belts, embraced 

 within the same parallels of latitude, and varying in breadth between 

 five and six hundred miles, the Cape Whale occupying the one which 

 stretches from the southern headland of Africa to the coasts of South 

 America, and the New Zealand species being confined to the other, 

 which extends from the west side of America to New Zealand ; the 

 large intermediate space in the South Atlantic being, I presume, an 

 interdicted locality. But as these whales, it matters not of which kind, 

 notoriously frequented in former times the shores of Tasmania, in great 

 numbers, and many were, and still are, captured even to the south of 

 Kerguelen's Land, it will be at once seen by a glance at the map of the 

 Southern Hemisphere that the latitudinal limit fixed upon by these 

 authors has been thus more than doubled, and that their imaginary 

 line of separation is simply incorrect. 



