ON THE GREENLAND RIGHT-WHALE. 25 



may occur, resembling each other, indeed, but forming diiEFerent species. Such an opinion has 

 often been put forth. Scoresby has pointed out that several tribes or families of whales dwell 

 on different stations in the sea between Spitzbergen and Greenland, and choose different routes 

 when leaving the region where they were first observed. 



Nor is this to be wondered at, for within the wide range of the species the several 

 individuals would, of course, have their separate homesteads, and would not wander about 

 promiscuously anywhere throughout this extensive region. Scoresby, however, believes that he has 

 seen differences between the tribes of whales appearing on different stations. In some cases he 

 considers these differences as dependent on the age of the individuals ; nor would this 

 be improbable, supposing the young whales separated themselves from the older ones ; but in 

 other instances he is inclined to consider the shoals appearing at different places as different 

 species or varieties. As the most essential distinction he points out a considerable variation in 

 the proportions of the head and the body, the head making, in some individuals, a third part at 

 least of the whole length of the whale ; in others, on the contrary, only two sevenths.^ Now this 

 is certainly a great difference, and it might seem of more importance since the head of the 

 young whale is, comparatively speaking, but little inferior in size to that of the full-grown 

 animal, so that such a difference cannot be accounted for by the difference of age ; but, on the 

 other hand, Scoresby does not seem to have been aware of the fact, that the males have much, 

 larger heads than the females (as will be shown more distinctly in the second part of this essay), 

 and therefore the difference pointed out by him loses much of its importance. Long before 

 Scoresby's time a Dutchman of great experience, Zorgdrager, fancied that he saw a difference 

 among the right-whales living in the sea near Spitzbergen, and he made a distinction between 

 the " Westys-Vissch," properly speaking, also called " eilandsche Walvissch," and a " Zuidys- 

 Vissch."^ Many circumstances contributed to strengthen the opinion that the latter whales 

 came from the east ; in the first place they used to make their appearance especially in those 

 years in which the " south-ice," as it was called, was very abundant, coming from the east and 

 round the south coast of Spitzbergen; in the second place, when it finally disappeared, they 

 returned in this direction ; and thirdly, they were evidently strangers near Spitzbergen, and as 

 fearless as the Spitzbergen whale, properly so called, had been at the commencement of the fishing 

 in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Moreover, Zorgdrager thought that he observed 

 that these south-ice whales had not such thick layers of blubber as the west-ice whale, that their 

 blubber was softer, and more yellow and tender, so that the harpoons did not stick so fast in 

 them as in the other species ; and lastly, that their back was more even than that of the other. 

 Of these peculiarities their eastward peregrinations only prove them to have been natives of other 

 seas ; their fearless confidence only shows that in their native seas they were not accustomed to 

 the persecutions of whalers, and even the difference of the quantity and quality of blubber 

 would hardly be sufficient to constitute a difference of species. Important as such peculiarities 

 may be for the whalers, they prove nothing as to the south-ice whale's having a right to form a 

 species by itself, and of characters that might seem important to the zoologist, Zorgdrager 

 only mentions one, and that not very considerable, viz., the difference in the shape of the back. 



^ Scoresby, 'Account,' ii, 211, 212. 



^ Zorgdrager, ' Bloeyende Opkomst der Aloude en Hedendaagsche Gvoenlandsche Visscherey,' &c. 

 Amsterdam, 1720; tveede Deel, v, xiii, xiv Hoofdtstuk and derde Deel, i Hoofdtstuk. 



4 



