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



de Bordeaux, XXXV, 1881, 10-55 (history, migrations, relationship). GASCO, 

 Compt. rend. Acad. Sci. Paris, LXXXVII, 1878, 412 (referred to B. biscayensis); 

 Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. (5), II, Dec. 1878, 497; Ann. Mus. civ. Geneva, 

 XIV, 1879, 582. HOLDER, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat, Hist,, I, No. 8, May, 1883, 

 99-139, pll. x-xiii (extern, and osteol. characters, histor. observations, etc.; 

 first figures of American specimens). 



Eubalama cisarctica GRAY, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. (4), VI, 1870, 391. 



Balcena britannica GRAY, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. (4), VI, Sept., 1870, 200 (fossil 

 cervical vertebrae from Lyme Regis, Engl.). 



Balcena tarentino CAPELLINI, Mem. R. Accad. Sci. Bologna (3), VIII, 1877, 3-32, pll. 

 i-iii (first description of Taranto specimen). DORAN, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. 

 (4), XX, 1877, 328 (ex Capellini). GASCO, Atti R. Accad. Sci. Napoli, VII, 

 No. 16, 1878, 1-47 (Taranto specimen, redescribed and referred to B. biscayensis. 

 as done by all subsequent writers). 



IV. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION, MIGRATIONS, AND COMMERCIAL 



EXTINCTION. 



It being conceded by leading cetologists that the Right Whale of the 

 western North Atlantic is not specifically separable by any external or 

 osteological characters from the Right Whale of the eastern North Atlantic, 

 the limits of its range may be given in general terms as extending (formerly 

 at least) over practically the whole North Atlantic, from the coast of Flor- 

 ida and the Bermudas on the western side to the entrance to Davis Strait, 

 the southern and southwestern coast of Greenland, and the waters about 

 Iceland; and on the eastern side from the coast of Spain and (casually at 

 least) the Mediterranean Sea northward to the seas between Norway and 

 Spitzbergen; in other words, approximately that part of the North Atlantic 

 between the January isotherms of 10 and 50 Fahrenheit, it occupying 

 the northern part of this area in summer, and the southern part in winter. 

 Its summer range thus slightly overlaps the winter range of the Greenland 

 Right Whale, which is also migratory, being driven from its summer resort 

 in the Polar seas by the winter ice; but it is not probable that both ever 

 occupy the same area at the same time. 1 



The early annals of the Whale Fishery show that this whale was hunted 

 in winter in the Bay of Biscay, and in summer was killed in large numbers 

 in the waters between Spitzbergen and the North Cape. Also that at a later 

 period the Basque, Norwegian, Dutch, and other whalers hunted it in sum- 

 mer in the seas about Iceland, and off the southeastern coast of Greenland, 

 in the Straits of Belle Isle, and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence; and that in 



Mr. A. Howard Clark says: " Resolution Island, at the entrance to Cumberland Inlet, is a 

 good ground for both bowhead and right whales during April and May," but on what authority 

 is not stated (cf. 'History and Present Condition of the Fishery,' in Fisheries and Fishery In- 

 dustries of the United States, Section V, Vol. II, 1877, p. 18). 



