1908.] Allen, The North Atlantic Right Whale. 279 



Eschrioht in 1S61 (as noted beyond), in a memoir that is a classic in 

 cetological literature. Since this date many important details have been 

 added by other writers, in various languages, especially in relation to the 

 early Basque whale-fishery carried on for centuries along the western coast of 

 Europe, based on this species. There are also many recent records of its 

 capture or occurrence in both European and American waters, indicating 

 that it is again slowly on the increase in some of its old-time haunts. There 

 is, however, no connected and adequate summary, comprising its technical 

 as well as non-technical history, at present extant, but numberless references, 

 partial histories, and original contributions of widely varying importance. 

 Most of these are cited passim in the following pages, with more or less 

 descriptive or critical comment. 



The North Atlantic Right Whale is now well known in comparison with 

 its congeners of other oceanic areas. Its North Pacific representative, 

 which has figured in literature for a century, and has been pursued by 

 American and other whalemen for three fourths of a century, is still zoolog- 

 ically almost unknown; it is represented in museums by only a few blades 

 of whalebone, and its general history rests mainly upon Scammon's account 1 

 of it and his figures of its external form. The most that can be said of it is 

 that it apparently differs widely not only from the Arctic, Bowhead, or 

 Greenland Whale, but from the right whales of the North Atlantic and 

 southern seas. The right whales of the southern hemisphere are entirely 

 unrepresented in the museums of this country, and, with the exception of 

 one of the species (Eubalcena australis), are also almost wanting in European 

 museums. There is, furthermore, not a skeleton, and only one or two 

 more or less imperfect skulls, of the common Greenland Whale in the 

 museums of America, which has been pursued for its commercial products 

 by American whalemen for centuries. During the last few years this Mu- 

 seum, largely through the liberality of Mr. George S. Bowdoin of New York 

 City, has made a good beginning toward securing a collection of skeletons 

 and other material to illustrate this great order of marine mammals; and 

 in view of the urgent need of prosecuting this work with vigor, it is hoped 

 that the means will be forthcoming for greatly increasing the world's knowl- 

 edge of these little known animals. 



PERSONAL NOTE. Nearly thirty years ago 1880-1882 the present writer 

 undertook the preparation of a work on the Cetacea and Sirenia of North America, 

 to be published as a volume of the quarto Reports of the United States Geological 

 and Geographical Survey of the Territories, then under the direction of the late Dr. 

 F. V. Hayden. As a preliminary step in this work, the compilation of an annotated 



1 C. M. Scammon. The Marine Mammals of the North-western Coast of North America, 

 described and figured. 4to, San Francisco, 1874. 



