ON THE GREENLAND RIGHT- WHALE. 



I. 



THE GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE OF THE GREENLAND WHALE 

 IN FORMER TIMES AND AT PRESENT. 



Even after it had been proved that the right-whales of the Pacific belong to a species quite 

 different from the Greenland whale, or north whale, and the supposition that the latter is a 

 cosmopolitan animal finding its way through all seas of the globe, was totally abandoned, it was 

 nevertheless believed that it had originally spread much further to the south than in our days, 

 that it had formerly been regularly chased and caught in the temperate waters of the northern 

 Atlantic, and that it was only by the persecutions of the whalers that it had been gradually 

 driven up towards the North Pole. 



Now this opinion, once supported by the highest authorities, may perhaps to a great extent 

 have lost its credit ; it still, however, has its supporters, in consequence chiefly of the facts and 

 arguments on which it was principally founded having been not always treated with sufficient 

 attention by its opponents. 



We therefore feel ourselves called upon to resume the question, formerly treated of by one 

 of us,^ about the original geographical range of the whale ; thus making more complete the 

 contributions to the natural history of the Greenland whale now laid before the Society, the 

 more especially since new light has been thrown on the subject by some important additional 

 information, by means of which we hope that all doubt and uncertainty may be disposed of in a 

 satisfactory way. 



Numerous and excellent as the accounts are which at different times have been given to us by 

 whalers about the place and manner of living of the Greenland whale, and greatly as zoology 

 is in this respect indebted to such men as Scoresby, Manby, Zorgdrager, and Martens, yet the 

 nature of the case makes it impossible for us to form a complete idea of the life of the whale in 

 its native seas by information gathered in this way. If therefore we are to learn anything 



^ Eschricht, D. F. Undersogelser over Hvaldyrene. Forste Afhandling. Bemærkninger over Ceto- 

 logiens tidligere og næværende Skjæbne (Kgl. D. Vidensk. Seisk. naturvid. Afhandl. 11 Deel., S. 129). 



' The same. Om de nordiske Hvaldyrs geographiske Udbredelse i nærværende og i tidligere 

 Tid. (i Forhandl, ved de skandinaviske Naturforskeres Mode i Kjobenhavn i 1847, S. 103). 



