ON THE GREENLAND RIGHT-WHALE. 41 



Li this compilation, otlierwise veiy meritoriouSj this opiiuon is stated without the shghtest attempt 

 to enforce it by reasons/ nor are we told how the authors were led to it. Perhaps it may be 

 only a repetition of a similar remark of Zorgdrager, which again (incredible as it may seem) is 

 only founded on the fact that Martens, on some of his voyages, had met Avith fin-whales in the 

 Bay of Biscay and in the Strait of Gibraltar." But however that may be, it is certain that the 

 historical facts do not admit of our supposing that the whale-fishery of the Basques was a fin- 

 whale-fishery. Cuvier was well aware of this, and accordingly did not fall into Scoresby's error, 

 but, following his authority in supposing the " Nordkaper " and the " Greenland whale" to be the 

 same animal, he Avas led into the mistake of rejecting what was right in Scoresby's reasoning, 

 and of setting forth the older theory that the whale has been gradually driven up into the Arctic 

 Sea, in all its crudity.^ 



As the " Nordkaper" must be a different animal from the Greenland whale, the question 

 arises, to which of the known species of right-whales it is most closely allied by its entire 

 structure ? 



It is a well-known fact that since the right-whale indigenous in the Southern Atlantic and 

 more especially near the shores of the Cape of Good Hope, was proved by the researches of Cuvier 

 to be a species totally diff"erent from the North whale, almost all authors have agreed in referring 

 to this species [Balæna australis or antarctica as it was also called) all the right-whales of the 

 Pacific, both south and^ north of the Equator ; and thus one species has been supposed to range 

 from the Cape to Australia, New Zealand, and the west coast of South America, and from Japan to 

 North America.* This statement can scarcely be correct. Such an immense geographical range 

 of a single species would, considered by itself, be a remarkable exception to the general laws of 

 nature, and it is still less probable, as right-whales are no more found in the tropical part of the 

 Pacific than in the corresponding part of the Atlantic, so that the right-whales of the South Pacific 

 are separated from those indigenous in the northern part of the same sea by a broad and 



■^ De Walvischvangst met veele Byzonderlieden daartoe betrekkelyk, Amsterdam^ 1784^ pp. 1 

 and 27. 



" Zorgdrager, German translation, Leipzig, 1723, pp. 142 and 152. 



^ ' Eeclierches sur les Oss. Foss.,' 4"^ ed. T. viii, p. 252. " La plus celebre des baleines propre- 

 ment dites, celle qui attire le plus les pécheurs, est la grande baleine des mers du Nord, qui venait 

 autrefois jusque dans le golfe de Gascogne, Oii les Basques ont appris ^ la poursuivre et que Ton est 

 oblige aujourd'hui d'aller clierclier jusque sur les cotes du Groéuland, de l'Islande et du Spitzberg.'' 

 Again, in " Histoire des Sciences naturelles depuis leur origine jusqu'a nos jours chez tons les peuples 

 connus professée au college de France," par G. Cuvier, publiée p. M. Magdeleine de Saint Agy. T. i (Paris, 

 1841), p. 269 : " Ou voit, que de son (Plinius) temps ces animaux venaient dans le golfe de Gascogne 

 et que les Basques paraissent étre les premiers qui se soient livres å leur péche. Lorsque les baleines 

 tourmentées par l'homme, se réfugiérent vers le nord, ce fut encore le méme peuple qui les y suivit ,■ et 

 les environs de Terre-Neuve porteut presque tons les noms qui sont ceux de difFerentes localités du 

 pays de Basques, notamment des environs de Bayonne. L'histoire de la science permet au reste de 

 suivre de siécle en siécle les baleines fuyant devant les attaques des pécheurs. 



* Schlegel, Abhandl. a. d. Gebiete d. Zoologie u. vergleich Anatomic, part i, p. 37. — Schreber, 

 J. C. D. V. die Saugthiere in Abbild. nach der Natur mit Besclireib. Fortgesetzt von Dr. J. A. 

 Wagner, 7ter Theil (Erlangen, 1846), p. 195. — V. d. Hoeven, Handbuch der Zoologie, 2nd pt., p. 660. 

 — Giebel, die Saugthiere, &c., p. 81. 



6 



