42 ESCHRICHT AND REINHARDT 



impenetrable belt. We oughts besides, to be tlie more cautious in such a supposition, having 

 already been warned by Cuvier, who states expressly that even in the sea near tlie south 

 coast of Africa, besides Balæna audrcdu, another right-Avhale Avas found, which he did not 

 hesitate to pronounce to be a different species, although the parts of the skeleton in his 

 possession were insufficient to give a characteristic description of it.^ Dr. J. E. Gray has, 

 therefore, attempted to distinguish between several species of right-whales from different parts of 

 the South Sea and the Pacific, founding his opinion especially on differences in the size and 

 quality of the whalebone ;" and even though these species are far from being clearly made out, as 

 a characteristic description of them is still wanting, it is probable that future observation wall 

 more or less completely confirm the results of his researches, and unquestionably the merit is due 

 to him of having contributed to point out to us Avhat little validity there is in the belief of a single 

 " South Sea whale," as it is called, as the whalebone brought home by whalers from different 

 parts of these seas is widely different, although, according to the supposition most current among 

 zoologists, it ought to belong to the same species of whale. But even though the Tjcdæna australis 

 or antardica of modern systematists is to be understood in a collective sense, yet the different 

 species hitherto comprehended by this name are more closely related to each other than any one 

 of them is to the Greenland whale, and they form a little group by themselves, to a certain degree 

 opposed to this whale by their having shorter and somewhat differently shaped heads and whalebone 

 essentially different.^ The most distinguishing point in the shape of the head is the appearance 



1 Rech. s. 1. Oss. Foss., i"'" Ed. T. viii, pp. 268 and 292. 



" The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Erebus and Terroi-, Mammalia, by J. E. Gray, Parts 

 iii, iv, V, London^ 1846, p. 47. — Catalogue of the specimens of Mammalia in the collection of the 

 British Museum. Part i, Cetacea, London, 1850. 



■' By this we do not mean to give it as our opinion that no other right-whales than those 

 belonging to the Cape right-whale groups may he found in the temperate oceans. On the contrary, 

 the whalebone on which Dr. Gray founded his species B. marginata, seems really to belong to a 

 species different from the collective species 5. ausiralis, and, at least as far as the whalebone goes, more 

 closely connected with B. mysticetus, although it may, when better known, turn out to form a third 

 type of right-whale. It is^ on the whole, not unlikely that forms of right-whales may be dis- 

 covered, especially in the Pacific, that have hitherto been totally unknown to naturalists. On his 

 circumnavigation round the globe, one of the authors (Reinliardt), while staying in the harbour of 

 Honolulu, in the Sandwich Islands, in October, 1846, had an opportunity of speaking with not 

 a few whale-fishers who at that time frequented this place. It was a common opinion among 

 these practical connoisseurs, that several species of whales were to he found in the northern part of the 

 Pacific, diff'ering from each other partly in the length of the head, partly in the manner of 

 " blowing," and partly in their movements and habits. Some of them were especially pointed out; 

 they were called " Scrags,'' and said to have whalebone only four feet long, though they were real 

 right-whales, without fins or humps on their backs; it was also stated that, like the true right-whales, 

 they did not appear beneath or near the Equator, but that they were frequent ofi' the coast of 

 California. That the so called " Humpbacks " [Megaptera) were taken by them for this species is by no 

 means likely ; these animals are very well known to whalemen ; one of those to whom we are indebted 

 for the above statement about the "Scrags" had even himself caught seven humpbacks near the 

 Bonin Islands, and yet declared most positively that the former were quite different, and genuine right- 

 whales. We might rather suppose that these " Scrags " were cubs of the common South Sea whales ; for, 

 according to Dieffenhach^ the cubs, when two years old, and still accompanying the mother-animal, are 



