398 BAL^NOPTERID.E. 



The name Rorqual is derived from the Norse Rorqval, 

 Swedish Rorhval, and means a whale with plaits or folds, 

 alluding to the longitudinal ventral furrows so charac- 

 teristic of this family. Several distinct species inhahit 

 the more temperate northern seas, but have been much 

 confounded with one another, owing to their great general 

 resemblance, and to the individual variations found in 

 animals of the same species. So much was this the case 

 that in our first edition only one species was included, 

 but with the remark that further observations were 

 required to clear up the discrepancies found in the 

 accounts of various writers. Since that time very much 

 has been done, and at least four distinct species are now 

 known to visit the European coasts, of which the present 

 species appears to be the most abundant. 



The Razor-back, or Common Rorqual, is a native of the 

 more temperate northern seas ; although it is said to have 

 been observed as far north as lat. 80°, its distribution is 

 certainly much more southern than that of the Greenland 

 Right- Whale, To the south of 70° north latitude it is 

 much more frequently met with, and it is the only 

 Balaenoid Whale which is known to enter the Mediterra- 

 nean, a fact which at once identifies it with the Mysticetos 

 of Aristotle and the Musculus of Pliny.* Although well 

 known to the natives of Greenland and Iceland, it appears 

 there irregularly and at all seasons. From time to time 

 specimens are stranded or washed ashore on the coasts of 

 Europe, and MM. Gervais and Van Benedenhave given a 

 long list of such occurrences. A female taken on the Ame- 

 rican coast is described by Dr. Dwightin the *' Memoirs of 

 the Boston Society of Natural History'^ for 1872. 



* Since the above was written we have seen, in the Marseilles Museum, a 

 skull of B. rostrata, which is labelled as having been obtained on the coasts 

 of Provence. 



