ON THE GREENLAND RIGHT-WHALE. 21 



beginning of the year until the end of May/ yet we venture to suppose that it might have 

 remained somewhat longer in the Gulf of St. Lawrence than a little further southwards, and, at 

 all events, this whale, belonging to a temperate sea, is more likely to have stayed in this part 

 during the summer months than an ice-whale, as the Greenland whale may be said to be. This 

 is rendered the more probable since, from Belon's descriptions of the whalebone, we are led to 

 suppose that the enormous whalebone of the Greenland whale, during the first twenty or thirty 

 years after the commencement of the navigation to Newfoundland, was totally unknown, even 

 though other whalebone was already a common and well-known article of merchandise.^ Eor this 

 author, though still misguided by the erroneous statements, descended to us from Pliny, as 

 to the nature of the whalebone, gives a very good description of its appearance, stating its length to 

 be eight feet, and its breadth to be one foot and a half. Now, it is true that Belon, in thus describing 

 the whalebone, states it to be somewhat longer than it is said by other authors to be in this 

 short-bone whale from the coasts of New England, yet the difference is not very great, and, at all 

 events, his measure would appear to be still less applicable to the Greenland whale. It is a rare 

 thing for an author to make the extraordinary and gigantic objects of his description less great 

 and remarkable than they really are, and Belon, had he known the ten- or lif teen-feet-long whale- 

 bone of the Greenland whale, would scarcely have described them as only eight feet long. 

 Besides, the breadth, as stated by Belon, is as little applicable to the whalebone of the Greenland 

 whale as the length, and thus the difficulty is not to be removed by the supposition that the 

 whalebone seen by him may have been that of whales not full grown ; for the longest blades of 

 whalebone of the Greenland whale never attain the breadth of one foot and a half; even when 

 eleven or twelve feet long (three or four feet longer than those described by Belon) they are only 

 ten inches broad. 



The existence, however, of a right-whale, with comparatively short whalebone, in the sea 

 round Newfoundland, does not, of course, preclude the appearance of the Greenland whale in the 

 same sea. The ranges of these two species may have been contiguous in this place, and certainly 

 various statements may be alleged to bear out the supposition that the Greenland whale must 

 also have been caught near Newfoundland, although they give little information as to the details 

 of the cases. 



Thus, Mr. Hector St. John, already mentioned, informs iis that the Nantucket whalers, besides 



^ ' Philosophical Transactions,' vol. xxxiii (1724.-25), No. 387, p. 263. 



^ In his book ' De Aquatilibus' (1553), he says that the whalebone is a sort of instrument by 

 means of which the whale finds its way in the sea. The following are his words : — " Prætenturas ante 

 oculos habet (sc. balaena), ab id appellatas, quod his sibi prætendat iter" (loc. cit., p. 5). In the French 

 text of the same work, ' La Nature et Diversité des Poissons' (Paris, 1555), he still states this opinion 

 to be generally adopted, but he is himself inclined to believe the whalebone to be the eyebrows of the 

 whale. His words are: — "Ce qu'on appelle la coste de Balene, dont les dames font aujourdhuy leur 

 bustes, et arrondissent leur verdagages, et que les bedeaux d'aucunes eglises portent en guises de 

 baguettes, ce sont certaines pieces coupees et tirees de ce qui sert de sourcilz a la Balene, et lui couvre 

 les yeulx, et est garnie d^un certain poil fort long aux extremitez ; c'est ce que les Latins appellent 

 Prætenturas, et qu'ilz disent luy servir de mire et conduicte dedans I'eau" (loc. cit., p. 5). The origin of 

 these strange errors (also to be met with in Albertus Magnus, in his ' Opus de Animalibus,' Mantua, 

 1479, liber xxiii ; " De natura natatilium,^' fol. cclxxxvii) is, as we have said, to be found in Pliny 

 (lib. ix, sect. Ixxxviii, Agasson de Grandsagne's ed., p. 204). 



