Art. XVIII. Preliminary ^i>< of Works and Pa- 

 pers Relating to the Mammalian Orders Cete and 

 Sirenia. 



By Joel Asaph Allen. 



Preparatory to undertaking the preparation of a history of the spe- 

 cies of the North American Cete and Sirenia, I began, some time since, 

 a systematic examination of the literature of the subject, taking titles 

 and making notes for future reference. It soon occurred to me that the 

 annotated list begun for my own use might be of service to other inves- 

 tigators in Cetology and Sirenology, and with this point in view I set 

 about the preparation of a bibliography of these subjects. The titles 

 thus far gathered are believed to cover nearly everything of importance 

 bearing upon their technical aspects, besides the more important of 

 those relating to their economical and commercial phases. The defi- 

 ciencies relate mainly to the latter, and consist in great degree of casual 

 notices of animals of the above-named orders in narratives of travel and 

 exploration, and in periodicals of an ephemeral or non-scientific char- 

 acter, relating generally to the capture or stranding of Whales at differ- 

 ent localities, and notices of Whaling. To make a bibliography which 

 should be exhaustive in these respects would be, it is needless to say, 

 the work of a lifetime, and would scarcely repay the labor expended 

 beyond a certain point of completeness, believed to have been nearly 

 reached in the collection of titles here presented. One department 

 of the subject of the Whale-fishery, for example, has been intentionally 

 wholly neglected, namely, legislation for its promotion and regula- 

 tion by different governments. This alone would furnish hundreds of 

 titles, which, while having only a remote bearing on the natural history 

 of Whales, would still have some importance in regard to the history of 

 Whaling. 



The titles here given have been taken by the writer, when not oth- 

 erwise stated, from the works and papers mentioned, and the com- 

 ments, unless otherwise indicated, are based on personal examination 

 of the same. Many titles Mating to the Whale-fishery have been copied 

 from D. Mulder Bosgoed's invaluable "Bibliotheca Ichthyologia et Pis- 



