SCANDINAVIAN CETACEA. 295 



from the Australian Sea ;' and the doubtful Balæna gihhosa, Brisson.'^ There is also iiientioned a 

 variety of Balæna mysticetus, or " probably different species," with a larger head, from statement? 

 by Guerin, who was surgeon on board a whaler. To these species may be added the North 

 Caper of the old authors {Balæna glacialis, Klein, Balæna islandica, Brisson, or Balæna 

 Nordcaper, Lacépéde), which, through the investigations of Professor Eschricht and Reinhardt, 

 as before stated, has proved to be a distinct species from the others, and still, though rarely, 

 appears in the Atlantic, where it formerly was more abundant towards the north. Two species 

 of this genus formerly existed in Scandinavia, to judge from the parts of their skeletons that have 

 been dug up at more or less great distances from the sea. One of these species still exists in the 

 Polar Sea, and probably appeared here diu*ing the so-called glacial period; the other may 

 still be living in the Southern Seas, and has most likely visited Scandinavia during the milder 

 period before the glacial epoch. At least one of them has wandered into the Baltic, and stranded 

 on the coast of Sweden, as late as during the historical period. 



1. The Swedenborgian Whale. 



In Emanuel Svedberg's (since ennobled under the name of Svedenborg) treatise ' Of the 

 height of the waters and the strong tide of the former World : Evidences from Sweden,' dedi- 

 cated to her Majesty the Queen Ulrica Eleonora, March the 17th, 1719, the 4th evidence has 

 the following title : — " Of large Eish-bones and Ship Materials fomid in the interior of the 

 country." In this is mentioned, among others, " And there was found, some years back, in 

 Westergothland, in the parish of Waga, 2 miles from Skara and 10 from the Western Sea, a 

 skeleton of legs, vertebrae, &c. ; and if the skull had been found there, it would have been 

 believed that it was a Swedish Polyphemus or Cyclops, who had forged the arms of Vulcan 

 here for the god Mars, or some other Gothic giant. It was carried to Upsala, and all that could 

 be fitted together was united ; but when the jointed bones were closely examined, it was a whale 

 or some other large fish, that had run far into the country when the water stood high, and had 

 been compelled to remain when the water fell, as the escape for such animals was then made 

 impossible. It is still in the Nosocomium, in Upsala, under the care of Professor Boberg, M.D., 

 and will serve as a monument of the general flood, and the overflowing of the great ocean over all 

 Europe." This was printed in Upsala. There is, in another edition of this remarkable treatise, 

 printed in Stockholm 1719, a little deviation from the one quoted, as this "evidence" is men- 

 tioned as the 12th, and it reads "12 mil.^ from the Western Sea" in place of 10. 



C. G. Styffe, Phil. Doct. and Librarian of the University, has kindly furnished me with ex- 

 tracts from some letters of the beginning of the last century, which are preserved in the collection 

 of manuscripts in the library of the college at Linkoping, and which have reference to the above- 

 mentioned bones, one of which particularly is of great interest, as containing the most complete 

 account that we have of their discovery. It is dated Brunsbo (the episcopal residence 



^ He has here, for the first time, called attention to and minutely described the different form of 

 the baleen in the different species. The species B. marginata is known only by the form of its 

 baleen. 



" [One Swedish " mil " is equal to 6-6423 English miles.] 



