8358 The Zoologist — January, 1873. 



The French and Belgian naturalists are very far behind in the 

 knowledge of these animals, as is proved by the names of the plates 

 in the 'Osteographie de Cetac^s,' and especially by the text of the 

 'Whalebone Whales,' by M. Van Beneden, which is the only part 

 of the text printed, M. Eschricht did some good work on the 

 common arctic whales, but he wanted specimens, and was very fond 

 of theoretical speculations from very few materials. Lillejeborg, 

 in the ' Nova Acta Upsal.' (1867), described all the Swedish whales, 

 translating the British Museum Catalogue of Cetacea, as far as 

 it regards the Swedish species, and making additions to it ; Prof. 

 Malm, in the Konigl. Svensk. Akad. Handl.' (ix. 1870) has described 

 all the specimens of Cetacea and their bones which are in the 

 Swedish Museums: he uses the 'Catalogue of Cetacea in the British 

 Museum' as the basis of his work, and describing some new species 

 and figuring them, and s])ecimens of parts not before described or 

 figured; and they certainly are the two best foreign authors on this 

 subject. I think this shows that the English zoologists hold a good 

 place among the students of Cetacea. 



It may be observed that the number of Cetacea found in England 

 is much greater than those recorded on the Continent; thus Nilsson, 

 in his Scandinavian Fauna, only enumerates sixteen, and Schlegel, 

 in his 'Fauna of Holland,' only ten species, against the English 

 thirty ; but no doubt this arises from their having been more in- 

 dustriously collected and carefully observed in this country. Since 

 18G-1 I have examined many specimens and their skeletons, and 

 been able to define the characters of the genera and species more 

 accurately and to obtain more knowledge of their geographical 

 distribution ; by this means I have increased the number of species 

 to thirty -three. 



Whales and dolphins chiefly live and exclusively breed in 

 sheltered bays and in shallow waters on the shores or over raised 

 banks in the ocean. The deep ocean appears to be a barrier which 

 only stragglers pass, a circumstance entirely overlooked by M. Van 

 Beneden, in his 'Geographical Distribution of Whalebone Whales,' 

 who believes that each species inhabits a defined belt across the 

 ocean. The species which inhabit and chiefly breed in the Arctic 

 Seas migrate southwards, some individuals keeping to the eastern 

 or European, and others to the western or American hemisphere, so 

 that some species of these whales are found on the shores of both 

 Europe and America. The species that live and breed in the 



