40 ESCHRICHT AND REIXIIARDT 



so evident]}- seen in the only picture given of the "Nordkaper." Neither of these reasons 

 will, however, on a closer consideration, seem particularly weighty. It is a matter of course 

 that any whale so unremittingly persecuted as the " Nordkaper" has been, must gradually 

 be brought near to complete extermination : the time will come when it will be a rarity, even in 

 the seas where it formerly was found in the greatest numbers. And besides, when we remember 

 that where Scoresby was beating for wrecks and months iu search of the Greenland whale, between 

 Spitzbergen and Greenland, he could not have met with the " Nordkaper," but that only on his 

 comparatively short voyages between England and the Arctic Sea could this possibly have 

 happened, we should, perhaps, in spite of the number of his voyages, rather feel inclined to 

 call it a remarkable coincidence if he had met with it ; at all events, it cannot be a matter of 

 surprise that he did not see it. We may also say that the drawings of the " Nordkaper,"'^ which, 

 as we have mentioned, are published by Lacepede, have been thought far too much of, when they 

 have been called the only evidence of any authenticity of the existence of this whale," and when 

 it has been inferred, from the circumstance of their exhibiting scarcely any difference from the 

 genuine Greenland whale,^ that the "Nordkaper" must be identical with this animal. 

 In order to make such an inference we ought to have ascertained beforehand whether these 

 drawings do really represent the "Nordkaper" properly so called, and whether this name, 

 so frequently misused, has not been misapplied in this instance too ; but here we have no means 

 of arriving at a certain conclusion. Lacepede tells us that he obtained the drawings from Sir 

 Joseph Banks three months before the publication of the ' Histoire Naturelle des Cétacés ' (1804), 

 with the information that they were drawn in Greenland by Bachstrom in the year 1779.4 But 

 in Baffin's Bay the "Nordkaper" is as rare as in the sea near Spitzbergen. According to what 

 we have stated above, only single individuals, at many years' intervals, have strayed thither, and 

 it is not very probable that Mr. Bachstrom really had an opportunity of seeing one." 



Now, Scoresby, knowing by many years^ experience the nature and habits of the Greenland 

 whale too well to believe that this whale, made for seas filled with ice, should ever have appeared 

 regularly far down in the Atlantic along the coasts of France and Spain, attempted to explain the 

 old statements of the Avhale-fishery of the Basques by the supposition that the whales that were then 

 caught and killed in the Bay of Biscay and the adjoining Atlantic were fin- whales ;" and in support 

 of this he appealed to the work published by De Yong, Kobel, and Saliette, about whale-fishing. 



^ Lacepede Hist. nat. des Cetacés, pi. 3. 



" " Le seul document muni de quelque authenticite que Ion ait cru pouvoir y rapporter." Cuvier, 

 *E,echerclies sur 1. ess. foss.' 4me. Ed. T. viii, p. 256. 



^ Scoresby, Ace. vol. i, p. 448, note. Cuvier^ 1. c. p. 257. 



* ' Hist. nat. d. Cétacés,' p. 108. " Ce Cétacé (le Nordcaper) vit dans la partie de I'Ocean 

 atlantique septentrional située entre le Spitzberj, la Norvege et I'Islande. Il habite aussi dans les 

 mers du Greenland, ou un individu de cette espece a été dessiné, en 1779, par Mr. Bachstrom, dont 

 le travail, remis dans le temps å Sir Joseph Banks, m'a été envoyé, il y a trois mois, pas cefc 

 illustre, &c." 



^ Lacepede does not say -who Mr. Bachstrom was ; nor have we been able to find any other traces 

 of such a person. He can scarcely have had any appointment in the Danish factories, and iu the list 

 of the missionaries of the brethren in Greenland, given by Crantz, the name of Bachstrom is not found. 

 He was most probably on board a whaling ship, as the words of Lacepede would seem to imply. 



^ 'Ace. of the Arc. Eeg.,' vol. ii, pp. 16, 162, 164. 



