494 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



as far as the Gulf of Gascony, where the Basques were in 

 the habit of pursuing it, but is now confined to the coasts 

 of Groenland, Iceland, and Spitzbergen. It will hardly be 

 credited that for more than a century there was but a 

 single figure in the least degree authentic of an animal, 

 the pursuit of which occupied so many men. It is true, 

 however, that the figures engraved in almost all books 

 before that of M. Scoresby, are copied from Frederic Mar- 

 tens's published in 1671, with some slight alterations made 

 by the designers for the purposes of concealing the pla- 

 giarism. 



"The enormous thickness of the body represented in 

 Martens' figure, we have known from that of Scoresby to 

 have been much exaggerated, and this, added to some ob- 

 scure expressions of Martens, led some writers to doubt the 

 species. 



" This author says that the Whales taken near the North 

 Cape are not so gross in bulk as those of Spitzbergen, and 

 yield less fat. He adds that they are more dangerous. He 

 designates these Whales in German by the adjective Nord- 

 Caper (Nord-Caper Wall-fisch), Whale of the North Cape. 

 This was considered a sufficient ground for the formation 

 of a new species designated by the noun substantive 

 Nord-Caper. This word was even supposed to signify 

 Pirate of the North, because the word Caper, taken substan- 

 tively and derived from a different root, has that meaning 

 in German. 



" Another equivocal expression of Zorgdrager a Dutch 

 author, was attended with similar consequences. He 

 speaks of fishes of the ice (Ys-fisch, in German Eis-jisch), 

 by which expression he simply means such Whales as are 

 taken near or in the midst of the icebergs, and which ex- 

 hibit some difference of bulk or habits. He distinguishes 

 even those that are taken in the southern ice between 

 Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, and those belonging to the 



