II. 



THE EXTERNAL AM) INTERNAL CHARACTERS OF THE 

 GREENLAND WHALE. 



By the preceding inquiries weliave been taught — (1) that not only in the southern, but also 

 in the northern hemisphere, and in the Atlantic as well as in the Pacific, different species of 

 right- whales are to be found ; (2) that all these species may be arranged into two different 

 groups, one of Vi^hich may be said to have the Cape whale and the other the Greenland AA'hale as 

 its representative ; and (3) that the one of these two groups, represented by the Cape whale, is so 

 far from being hmited to the seas south of the Equator, that it always has been, and is still 

 indigenous in all the iceless seas of the northern hemisphere, both w^est and east, while the other 

 group keeps more closely to the North Pole, and more especially (as is the case with the Green- 

 land whale) to the immediate neighbourhood of the ice. 



Now, the next problem of oiu- science would be to find out distinguishing marks sufficiently 

 characteristic, both in their external form and in their skeleton generally as well as in individual 

 bones, at least for those two species which have been chosen as types of the two groups, which 

 we will briefly denominate the groups of North whales and South whales. 



As far as the type of the latter group is concerned, this problem may be said to have been 

 solved by Cuvier's classical examinations of two skeletons of this species, the one that of a full- 

 grown animal, the other of a young one, both of them sent from the Cape to the Paris Museum 

 by the French naturalist Delalande. But no skeleton of the Greenland whale had been 

 sent to Cuvier, or to any other European natiu-ahst. However much it Avas to be desired that 

 th:s interesting animal, of M'hich several thousands have been annually caught during the last two 

 ceaturies, should be more minutely examined, no such examination has ever hitherto been 

 made. 



Singular as this may seem at first sight, the reason will be obvious on further consideration. 

 While carrying on the whale fishery, formerly so profitable in the northern Polar seas, several 



