1908.] Allen, The North Atlantic Right Whale. 287 



must be considered as equally exceptional when either of these species 

 strayed into the range of the other, and, moreover, that in its native sea it 

 was to be found farthest towards south in the winter (namely, in the Bay of 

 Biscay and near the coast of North America, down to Cape Cod [and even 

 to the Carolinas]), while in the summer it roved about in the sea round 

 Iceland, and between this island and the most northerly part of Norway 

 [and also about Newfoundland]. 



"The existence of such a North Atlantic right-w r hale may be said to be 

 so certain, that it is much more surprising that it ever should have been 

 omitted in the zoological system than that it has now, as we hope, regained 

 its former place in it. The reasons why Scoresby, and afterwards Cuvier, 

 would not acknowledge it as a separate species, 1 were, besides an insufficient 

 knowledge of the historical evidence relating to it, partly the fact of the 

 former's not having seen anything of it on his many whaling expeditions, 

 and partly the great resemblance to the Greenland whale, so evidently seen 

 in the only picture given of the 'Nordkaper.' Neither of these reasons will, 

 however, on a closer consideration, seem particularly weighty. . . .We may 

 also say that the drawings of the ' Nordkaper,' 2 which, as we have mentioned, 

 are published by Lacepede, have been thought far too much of, when they 

 have been called the only evidence of any authenticity of the existence of 

 this whale, 3 and when it has been inferred, from the circumstance of their 

 exhibiting scarcely any difference from the genuine Greenland whale, 4 

 that the 'Nordkaper' must be identical with this animal. In order to make 

 such an inference we ought to have ascertained beforehand whether these 

 drawings do really represent the 'Nordkaper' properly so called, and 

 whether this name, so frequently misused, has not been misapplied in this 

 instance too; but here we have no means of arriving at a certain conclusion. 

 Lacepede tells us that he obtained the drawings from Sir Joseph Banks 

 three months before the publication of the 'Histoire Naturelle des CetaceV 

 (1804), with the information that they were drawn in Greenland by Bach- 

 strom in the year 1779. 5 But in Baffin's Bay the 'Nordkaper' is as rare as 

 in the sea near Spitzbergen. According to what we have stated above, 



1 "In the first edition of the 'Regne Animal,' (1817), Cuvier still believed in the existence 

 of the ' Nordkaper ' (Balasna glacialis Kl.) (1. c. vol. i, p. 286). It was not till in the ' Recherches 

 sur les ossemens fossiles,' and in the essay: ' Sur la determination des diverses especes de Baleines 

 vivantes' (in 'Ann. d. Sc. nat.' T. ii, 1824), that it was abandoned, and it is easily to be seen 

 that this alteration in Cuvier's opinions was, to a great extent, occasioned by the statements of 

 Scoresby." 



: " Lacepede Hist. nat. des Cetace"s, pi. 3." 



"'Le seul document muni de quelque authenticity que Ton ait cru pouvoir v rapporter ' 

 Cuvier, 'Recherches sur 1. oss. foss'. 4me Ed. T. viii, p. 256." 



1 "Scoresby, Ace. vol. i, p. 448, note. Cuvier, 1. c. p. 257." 



5 "'Hist. nat. d. Ce'tace's, p. 108.' 'Ce Ce"tace"' (le Nordkaper ") vit dans la partie de 1'Ocean 

 atlantique septentrional situe"e entre le Spitzberg, la Norvegeet 1'Islande. II habite aussi dans 

 les mers du Greenland, oO un individu de cette espece a e"te" dessine", en 1779, par Mr. Bachstrom. 

 dont le travail, remis dans le temps a Sir Joseph Banks, m'a 16 envoye", il v a trois mois, pas ct-t 

 illustre, &c.' " 



