294 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXI V, 



Spain, in January, 1854, which, however, though figured soon after by 

 Monedero, remained practically undescribed till 1879. Its skeleton was 

 secured in 1858 for the Museum of the University of Copenhagen by Esch- 

 richt, when its examination by him confirmed him in his previous opinion, 

 based on an exhaustive study of the literature bearing on the Greenland 

 Right Whale and the Right Whale of the North Atlantic, that these two 

 animals were not only distinct species, but that the latter was much more 

 nearly related to the Right Whales of the southern seas than to those of the 

 Arctic seas. His statement of its affinities was immediately accepted by 

 all cetologists except Gray, who, after introducing the name Balcena biscay- 

 ensis into scientific literature, apparently by inadvertence, later took the 

 ground that it "as a zoological species rests on very slender grounds/' 

 and considered it as "not proved that the Greenland Whale had not [form- 

 erly] a more extended distribution than at present," and had been driven 

 by the whalers from the temperate parts of the North Atlantic to the icy seas. 

 Van Beneden, on the contrary, accepted the species; and this and other 

 differences of opinion between him and Gray led to a series of controversial 

 papers which form an interesting and instructive episode in the history of 

 the present subject. 



Early in the year 1868, Professor Van Beneden published a paper on 

 'Les baleines et leur distribution geographique,' 1 with a map illustrating 

 the distribution of the five species recognized by him as "Baleines propre- 

 ment dites," or those having neither a fin nor a "bosse" on the back and 

 without gular folds. Among these species is "2 La Baloena biscayensis" 

 (pp. 15, 16). Its early history, in relation to its former distribution, is 

 briefly stated, and its supposed range is indicated on his accompanying map 

 of the distribution of the Right Whales. Unfortunately the map is incom- 

 plete, failing to show certain areas well known to be frequented by Right 

 Whales, and somewhat erroneous as regards the ranges of some of them, 

 as was promptly shown by Gray in a paper ' On the Geographical Distribu- 

 tion of the Balaenidse or Right Whales.' 2 Gray, however, while pointing 

 out the faults of Van Beneden, committed others peculiarly his OWTI, espe- 

 cially in relation to the San Sebastian specimen, of which he says: "Mr. 

 Flower informs me that this skeleton belongs to my genus Cuvierius, 3 which 

 has brittle whalebone, with a large coarse fringe (which easily splits into 

 strips), and a bifid first rib" ; and later on refers to it as "Balcena (Hunterius) 

 biscayensis." He also says: "It is very doubtful if this is the Whale found 



1 Bull, de 1'Acacl. roy. de Belgique, 2 me ser., XXV, No. 1, 1868, pp. 9-21, avec une carte. 



2 Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser.. Vol. I, April, 1868, pp. 242-247. 



3 On this point cf. Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1864, p. 391, where he refers it to 

 Gray s genus Eubalcenal As Cuvierius is a Fin-Whale, this may have been a lapsus pennce for 

 Eubalcena, but the immediate context does not appear to warrant this supposition. Further- 

 more, Gray in 1870 (Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., VI, 1870, p. 200), stated his belief that 



Balcena biscayensis, Eschricht," is "a Cuvierius with a double-headed first rib." 



