SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRITISH SEAS. 49 



MYSTACOCETI (WHALEBONE WHALES.) 



BALjENIDM. 



THE GREENLAND RIGHT-WHALE. 



The first species, both in order and importance, of the Family BalccnidcB 

 is the well-known Balcena mysticetus, the GREENLAND, or Right-Whale as 

 it is called by the whalers. So extremely doubtful, however, are the claims 

 of this animal to a place in the British Fauna, that it is retained in the present 

 treatise solely on account of the great interest attaching to it as a species, 

 and not from any idea of maintaining for it a position, which, although 

 hitherto assigned to it, has now become untenable. The use of the term 

 well-known is perhaps unadvised ; for, although this species has engaged the 

 energies and industry of the merchant seamen of Northern Europe for 

 centuries, so little was known of it scientifically, that not a single skeleton 

 had ever found its way into any European museum, until Eschricht obtained 

 one from Holsteinborg, in Greenland, in 1846. The recorded instances 

 of the supposed occurrence of this species in the British Seas are unsatis- 

 factory in the e.xtreme. The most positive record is that in Messrs. 

 Paget's ' Natural History of Great Yarmouth.' They say : " Balcena 

 mysticetus — common Whale — a small one taken near Yarmouth, July 8, 

 1784." Sir James Paget, however, in a letter to the Author, is unable to add 

 to the brief statement, as will be seen from the following extract from his 

 communication:—"! am sorry I can give you no information respecting the 



