ON THE GREENLAND RIGHT-WHALE. 45 



temperate sea; bat Avhat especially speaks iii its favoiu-j and renders it most probable, is the very 

 well-authenticated fact of the Nordkaper being infested by coronulas. Por while the whalers 

 of all times agree in declaring that no serai-parasite whatever of the order of Cirripeds is to 

 be found on the . Greenland whale, it is an indisputable fact that the species just men- 

 tioned is peculiar to the South Sea whales, and inseparable from them, Avherever they live, 

 near the Cape as well as near New Zealand and the coasts of Japan, exactly in the same manner 

 as the cirriped genus Diadema is confined to the humpbacks [Megaptera), and found on these 

 whales in Davis Strait and Baffin's Bay, as well as in the Pacific. That the " Nordkaper " is to 

 be placed in the same group as the South Sea whales is, however, all that can be said, as long as 

 we have only historical evidence to go by. It is scarcely possible by this alone to say what place 

 it ought to occupy among them. It is not likely to be identical with any of them, not even with 

 the Cape whale ; but v/hen we consider it to be different from the latter, it is more on account of 

 the common laws affecting the geographical distribution of animals than because the scanty 

 information we have about the Nordkaper contains anything that positively contradicts the 

 contrary supposition. 



We are not, however, confined to these historical statements alone, for although a few years 

 ago they were the only ones accessible, the case is now different. 



Since the close of the last century nothing had been heard of the Nordkaper ; but it then 

 was still, if not very numerous, yet not unfrequent in the Northern Atlantic. It was, as we 

 know, regularly caught near the coasts of Nantucket; we have also seen that one of two 

 Danish whale-ships which, in the years 1778 and 1779, were sent out on a whaling expedi- 

 tion into the Southern Atlantic, on its return caught a Nordkaper between Newfoundland 

 and Iceland. The fact that the captains in their instructions were ordered, certain events 

 taking place, to seek the Nordkaper in these northerly seas, shows that the capture of this 

 individual cannot be considered as a peculiarly remarkable case,-^ in proof of which assertion 

 it may be mentioned that even American vessels, as late as between 1770 and 1780, occasionally 

 caught Nordkapers in Brede Fiord and Faxe Bay, in Iceland." Now, when vpe add that the 

 fitting out of whale ships requires so much capital that a very considerable diminution of the 

 number of whales must render the fishing too bad a speculation to be continued for any length of 

 time, and that therefore, though some species of whales may indeed even in a short time be 

 almost destroyed, but can hardly be totally extirpated by the whale-fishery, we might hope, with 

 a certain degree of probability, that an opportunity might be given to us of becoming better 

 acquainted with the Nordkaper, and such an opportmiity has really presented itself. 



On the 17th of January^ 1854, a right-whale, accompanied by its young one, appeared 

 in the Bay of Biscay, outside the harbour of San Sebastian. On being chased, the mother 

 escaped, but the cub was caught, and its skeleton was brought to Pampeluna. The excellent 

 scholar. Professor Geffroy, whose interest in our country, we Danes have so much occasion to 

 acknowledge with gratitude, was kind enough to inform one of the authors of this remarkable 

 event, and at the same time to send him a lithographed sketch of the cub that had been caught 

 and killed, and proved to be twenty-six Spanish feet long. The lithograph had been executed 

 from a drawing taken on the spot under the superintendence of Dr. Monedero. As might have 



^ Pontoppidan, C. Hval-og Eobbefaiigat udi Strat-Davis, p. 81. 

 " 1. c. p. 76 — 78. 



