52 ESCHRICHT AND REINHARDT 



we liave not only a satisfactory proof of its being a different species from tlie Greenland whale, 

 but, at the same time, the first complete description of the'skeleton of any right-whale ; accordingly 

 this skeleton has been considered as the best type of that of the right-whales in general. We, 

 however, venture to assert that the skeleton of the Greenland whale is better adapted to 

 this purpose than that of the Cape whale, especially as compared with the osteology of the 

 plaited-bellied whales or Rorquals (Humpbacks and Finners), because the first result of any 

 comparison between the Cape whale and the Greenland whale must always be that the latter 

 forms a more complete contrast to the Rorquals than the former, as it is in this species 

 that the whalebone, the enormous development of which is the most peculiar character of 

 the right-whales, reaches its greatest length, and all those most important peculiarities of organi- 

 zation concurrent with this extraordinary development of the whalebone must follow step by step 

 with it. 



But we have still another reason to use the Greenland whale instead of the South whale from 

 the Cape as a type of the genus of right-whales [Balænd], a reason, too, which, after what has 

 been stated before, may seem surprising, namely, that, troublesome and expensive as it always 

 must be to procure the skeletons and viscera of such colossal animals as the right-whales, yet 

 this trouble and expense will generally be found to be much less considerable in the case of the 

 Greenland whale than in any other species, as long as it is only with its regular coast fishing- 

 places in Greenland, and not with those of the South whales (on the coasts of Africa and New 

 Zealand), that the European museums have any communication ; and to this M^e must add the 

 readiness to serve our purpose, for which we cannot be sufficiently thankful, that has always 

 been shown to Danish museums and men of letters by the Royal Direction of the Greenland Trade, 

 and by the functionaries appointed in the northern and southern inspectorate, formerly 

 more especially Major Pasting and the lamented Captain Holboll, and more lately Dr. Rink 

 and Mr. Olrik. 



For it is not, as we have been taught by experience, from the whalers, but from the regular 

 fishing-places on the coasts, that we may hope to obtain the materials necessary to the study of 

 the right-whales. How successful we have been in this respect will be proved by the list of the 

 materials at our disposal for these researches. 



1. The skeleton of an individual about forty-seven and a half Danish feet (forty-eight feet 

 ten and a half inches English) long, stated to have been a male. It was given, in the year 

 1846, for a comparatively small sum to repay expenses, by the late Captain Holboll to the 

 keeper of the Zootomical and Physiological Museum of the University of Copenhagen (Eschricht), 

 and by the latter to the museum, in which it was exhibited until the winter of 1860-61 •} and 

 it is especially from this that all the figures, with one exception, have been taken on the second, 

 the fourth, and the fifth plates illustrating our memoir. But though in other respects complete, 

 it had this defect, that all the foremost caudal vertebrae were totally disfigured by large exos- 

 toses ; and as its pelvis consisted of only two bones on either side, the third, which we consider 

 to be the most interesting, being absent, its place has now been conceded to the one we 

 shall mention next, which, with all the good qualities of the former, had neither of these essential 

 defects. 



2. The complete skeleton of a full-grown male, forty-four and a half feet long, caught in the 



^ It is now in the Museum at Brussels. 



