292 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXIV, 



"2. Balcena Biscayensis, Esch. & Van. Ben. 

 " Hob. The Bay of Biscay. I have seen no remains of this Whale " (1. c., p. 348). 



Slightly later it was used by Prof. W. H. Flower, who, in his 'Notes on 

 the Skeletons of Whales in the principal Museums of Holland and Belgium/ 

 etc., 1 in speaking of Gray's genus Eubalcena, says: "Type species, E. 

 australis (Desm.) Probably several other species, including Balcena bis- 

 cayensis, Eschr. ; but these are not yet well determined" (1. c., p. 391). 



In 1866, in his ' Catalogue of Seals and Whales in the British Museum' 

 (p. 89) Gray introduced this species still more formally, as follows: 



_'. Balaena Biscayensis. 



"Baleine de Biscaye, Van Beneden, Bull. Acad. Roy. Belgique, [(2) XII,] 1861, 462. 



" Balsena Biscayensis Gray, P. Z. S. 1864, 200 [= 201]. 



" Baleine franche du golfe de Biscaye, Eschricht, Comptes Rendus, 1860; Actesde la 



Soc. Linn, de Bordeaux, t. 13, 4 e livr. [lege t. XXII]. 

 "Balsena (Eubalsena) Biscayensis, Flower, P. Z. S. 1864, 391. 



"Inhab. Bay of Biscay, St. Sebastian. A female and its young, Jan. 1860 [lege 

 1854]. Skeleton at the Museum of Pampeluna [lege Copenhagen]." 



This is followed by a quotation of two lines (as given above) from his 

 1864 paper; by a reference (4 lines) to what Cuvier stated about the occur- 

 rence of the Greenland Right Whale in the Gulf of Gascony, etc.; by six 

 lines from Flower's above-cited paper, and ten lines from Eschricht, followed 

 by a few lines of comment. 



On an earlier page of the 'Catalogue' (p. 84), he also refers to "the 

 whale which Eschricht has described under the name Balcena Biscayensis"; 

 and later still, in 1870, in his "Observations on the Whales described in the 

 ' Osteographie des Cetaces ' of MM. Van Beneden and Gervais," he mentions 2 

 the San Sebastian whale as "the specimen which has been named Balcena 

 Biscayensis by Eschricht," or as "Balcena Biscayensis, Eschricht/' etc. 



Thus was introduced the name Balcena biscayensis into the literature of 

 zoology. It was first employed by Gray in 1864, on two occasions, and 

 again in 1866, when he gave references and synonyms; but he now ascribed 

 its origin to Eschricht, and later abandoned it as lacking proper basis. 



Eschricht was the first modern author to recognize the Right W^hale of 

 the North Atlantic as different from the Greenland Right Whale, and not 

 only as different from it, but as having no close relationship to it, he stating 

 it to be, on the other hand, nearly related to Balcena australis of the south- 



1 Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1864, pp. 384-420. (Read Nov. 8, 1864). 



2 Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., VI, Sept. 1870, pp. 197-199, 200. 



