1908.] Allen, The North Atlantic Right Whale. 291 



its structure are presented, but the statement is made that it is distinguishable 

 by striking differences both from the Greenland Right Whale and the Baleine 

 du Cap. His last public reference to the subject appears to have been in 

 the memoir 'Cm Nordhvalen,' published in 1861, in which he promised the 

 special results of his examination of the young skeleton in a future essay; 

 "here it may be sufficient to state, that he has succeeded in establishing the 

 fact, that the Nordkaper, though belonging to the group of South Sea whales, 

 is really, as we had supposed, an independent species perfectly different 

 from the Cape whale." l 



Van Beneden has also stated that Eschricht contemplated giving a de- 

 scription of this skeleton in a new work which was to have been published 

 at Paris but which was suspended by his death when only a few sheets had 

 been printed. 2 Van Beneden gives the following extract from a letter from 

 Eschricht dated the 23d of June, 1861 : " Je joindrai a la secoiide livraison, 

 pour les baleines f ranches (Leiobal&na) , mes recherches sur la baleine de 

 Biscaye et sur la japonica, dont j'ai recu un foetus tres-maltraite"." : In 

 the same connection Van Beneden states that Professor Reinhardt "s'est 

 engage a publier la description de ce squelette unique, qui se trouve au 

 musee de 1'universite de Copenhagen." This skeleton remained unde- 

 scribed, however, till 1879, when it was described by Gasco, 4 as noted more 

 fully on a later page of this paper. In the meantime, however, it had be- 

 come the basis of the name Balcena biscayensis. 



Origin of the name Balcena biscayensis. The name Balcena biscayen- 

 sis has figured prominently since 1864 in the literature of cetology, and 

 has been almost universally accredited to Eschricht. In none of Eschricht's 

 published writings, however, is the term used, nor any name approaching it 

 nearer than "Baleine franche de Biscaye." 5 



The first occurrence of the name is in Dr. J. E. Gray's paper entitled 

 'On the Cetacea which have been observed in the Seas surrounding the 

 British Islands/ published in 1864, 6 in which occurs: "The Right Whale of 

 the Bay of Biscay (B. biscayensis) is regarded as a different species from the 

 B. mysticetus by Eschricht and Van Beneden" (/. c., p. 201), without citation 

 of their papers, or any additional comment. A few months later, in a paper 

 entitled 'Notes on the Whalebone Whales; with a Synopsis of the Species,' 7 

 he more formally introduced it, as follows : 



1 Eschricht and Reinhardt, Recent Memoirs on Cetacea, p. 46. 



2 Milne Ed wards, in 1864 (Ann. des Sci. nat., 5* se"r., I, 1864, pp. 201-224), published, after 

 Eschricht's death, from the proofsheets, this part of the proposed work, under the title ' Re- 

 cherches sur la distribution des Grace's dans les mers boreales,' which includes " I, Introduc- 

 tion" (I. c., pp. 201-204); " II. La cote occidentale du Greenland" (pp. 205-224). In this 

 there is no reference to the specimen taken in the Gulf of Biscay, nor even to the Nordkaper. 



3 Osteogr. des ce"t ace's, livr. 4, 1868, p. 98. 



4 II balenotto catturato nel 1854 a San Sebastiano (Spagna) (Balcena biscayensis, Eschricht > 

 per la prima volta descritto. F. Gasco. An. Mus. Civ. Stor. Nat. Genova, XIV, 1879, pp. 573- 

 608. 



5 Compt. rend, de 1'Acad. des Sci., L, 1860, p. 924. 



6 Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1864 pp. 195-248. (Read May 24, 1864.) 



7 Ann. and Mag. Nat, Hist., 3 ser., XIV. Nov. 1864, pp. 345-353. 



