32 ESCnRICHT AND REINHARDT 



proved edition of that in the ' Mirror,' but several notes are added, and thus we find the 

 " Sletbag " spoken of in the following words ■} 



" Decinnnn tertium Hoddunefur, ab incurvo rostro, seu Slettehachir minor XXXV ulnas 

 longus, omnium sæpissime captus et inventus. Hujus generis, ut et reliquos Sletbakos, qui esui 

 apti sunt, venantur Hispani et Galli. Ipsorum lardum incomiptum asservari non potest. 

 Quamprimum enim in frusta dissecatiu', sive suspendatur sive in solo collocetur, in oleum 

 resolvitur. Unde fit, ut hujusmodi carnis frustulum, quod pondo islandicum majus pendet, 

 24 tantum aut circiter solidis veneat. Hie 500 in rostro corneas laminas habet, omnes tenues, 

 quinque cubitos longas, sed leviter velut glutine cohærentes, quibus sartores nostri utuntur in 

 vestibus consuendis." 



We learn by this description not only that this " Sletbag" of the old Icelanders was really 

 a whalebone-whale (and therefore as a wdialebone-whale with a finless back, a right-whale), 

 but we learn also, on the unequivocal authority of contemporary persons, on the one hand, that 

 this was the whale at that time most commonly caught near the coast of Iceland, especially by 

 French and Spanish whalers, who in the seventeenth century and still long afterwards every 

 summer used to carry on a lucrative whale-fisheiy in the Icelandic sea, and on the other hand, 

 that this " Sletbag " was an animal very different from the North or Greenland whale. Worm's 

 correspondent has retained the ' Mirror's ' statements about the size of the North whale ; he, too, 

 says that, it is " LXXX ulnas longus totidemque crassus \' but he adds (what is not to be 

 found in the ' Mirror'), " corneas laminas 13 ulnarum longas habet." Now, it is true that all these 

 figures are much exaggerated, but however much exception may be taken to them absolutely, 

 the great difference in the statements of the size of the North whale and the Sletbag must always 

 be very important, and when the whalebone of the former is put down at 13 ells (ulnæ), that of 

 the latter, on the contrary, is stated to be five "cubitos" long (by which appellation, perhaps, even 

 another measure may be meant than by "ulna"), this, too, seems to show that a considerable 

 difference existed between these two whales. Bartholin tells us° that the statements of the 

 Icelandic clergyman were illustrated by drawings of all the different Cetaceans. These drawings 

 seem to have been lost. But an Icelandic manuscript (No. 12), with Danish translation, in- 

 scribed " Om det islandske Hvalfiske Kjon," and illustrated by outlines of all the Cetaceans 

 enumerated in it, is preserved in the Library of the Veterinary and Agricultural Academy at 

 Copenhagen. Judging from the appearance of the manuscript, we should suppose it to have 

 been written in the middle of the eighteenth century ; but, properly speaking, it is, like the 

 statement sent to Worm, only another reproduction of the old list of the ' Mirror,' with several 

 additions. Although the outlines are exceedingly bad and contain the most obvious errors, 

 most of the different species may be recognised, and accordingly it is worthy of note that 

 the picture of the " Sletbag " (which, perhaps, is only a copy of the older one of the Icelandic 

 clergyman) looks as different from that of the North whale as it ought to do according to the 

 descriptions, and it is especially distinguished from the latter by the greater slenderness of the 

 body, and the much inferior proportions of the head, and especially the mouth. As it seems 

 to us that none of these Icelandic statements about the two species of whales, to which refer- 

 ence is made, ought to be omitted, we give here the description of them as it is found in the 

 last-mentioned manuscript : 



^ L. c, p. 278, 279, - L. c, p. 272. 



