162 ESCHRICHT ON THE 



scarcely be diiRcult to show that it happened because people were in general too unconditionally 

 guided by the statements found in Sibbald's work. 



For under the name Balænæ Sibbald comprehended all large Cetaceans, and in his 

 ' Phalainologia ' he only treats of those which he knew were found near the coasts of 

 Scotland, namely, 1st, the killers ; 2ndly, a shoal of Cetaceans stranded at the Orkneys, 102 in 

 all, the largest twenty-four feet long, the smallest only twelve feet, with teeth in the lower jaw, 

 but only with holes in the upper jaw, into which the latter fit, having on the back a pro- 

 tuberance {asperitas), which could not, properly speaking, be called a fin — evidently a herd of 

 small cachalots, one of the schools, so called; 3rdly, a flock of toothed-whales, twenty-five in all, 

 stranded in the Firth of Forth, most of them twelve feet long, some only nine or ten — we suppose 

 a herd of ca'ing-whales {Globiocepkalus). All these Cetaceans are treated of in the first section of 

 ' Phalainologia.' 



In the second section of the same work the Balance mdjores in inferiore maæilla tantum 

 dentatcB are described. These are also called macrocephalæ, as their head is said to make at least one 

 fourth, often one third, or more, of the whole animal. He adds that this great head always 

 contains spermaceti, having besides a peculiar form, especially by being provided with a large 

 protuberant part on the upper surface of the cranium, and an upper jaw much broader and naore 

 prominent than the lower one. Science, in its present state of development, would tell us clearly 

 enough that the animals in question can only have been cachalots ; but that form was only 

 known to Sibbald from the descriptions and figures of others, and these were all taken from 

 individuals stranded on the European shores, and having their bellies turned upwards. The small 

 and indistinctly defined dorsal fin (the hump) of the cachalots had in no case been observed, and 

 Sibbald was of opinion that the cachalots, properly so called, had not any dorsal fin. He treats 

 of them, in the first chapter of the second section, by the name of Balcena macrocephala, quce 

 Unas tantum pinnas later ales habet. Now, it happened twice in his time that a cachalot was 

 stranded on the coast of Scotland ; one in the Firth of Forth, in February, 1689, and the other in 

 the Orkneys, 1687, and in both cases it was stated by eye-witnesses that the animals had a dorsal 

 fin. Accordingly he did not suppose them to be cachalots, properly speaking. Some of the 

 teeth of both individuals were further sent to him, and these were very different from each other ; 

 that is to say, as we see by the figures in the second plate of the ' Phalainologia,' just as different 

 as young and still unworn teeth of cachalots generally are from old and worn ones. But 

 these characters of differences of age were supposed by Sibbald to be characters of species ; 

 and thus he was induced to form two new species in opposition to the cachalots properly so 

 called, and characterised as wanting the dorsal fin, namely, 1st, a Balæna macrocephala, quæ 

 tertiam in dorso pinnam sive spinam habet et dentes in maxilla inferiore arcuatos falcif ormes ; 

 and, 2ndly, a Balæna macrocephala tripinnis, quæ in mandibula inferiore dentes habet miniis 

 inflexos et in planum desinentes. Of the former of these, the younger individual from the Firth 

 of Forth, it w^as told that it had been impossible to measure it, as in its last agony it had forced 

 part of its body down into the sand. Nevertheless they brought him a figure of it, which was 

 thought by Sibbald, to be, on the whole, most similar to the figure of a cachalot iu the forty- 

 second plate of Johnstone's ' Historia Naturalis,' and, as to the head, to the figure in the plate 

 of Cetaceans in Willoughby's ' Historia Piscium,' most probably because the teeth are there 

 represented as being pointed. To judge, however, by the print given by Sibbald, as copied 

 from the same picture, in the first plate of his ' Phalainologia,' it must be confessed, that 



