(269%) 
XXXIII.—The Right Whale of the North Atlantic, Balena biscayensis: its 
Skeleton described and compared with that of the Greenland Right Whale, 
Balena mysticetus. By Principal Sir Wm. Turner, K.C.B., D.C.L., F.R.S., 
President of the Society, Knight of the Royal Prussian Order Pour le Mérite. 
(With Three Plates, and Figures in Text.) 
(Read December 2, 1912. MS. received December 3, 1912. Issued separately March 24, 1913.) 
CONTENTS. 
PAGE PAGE 
Historical Introduction . : . 889 Sternum . : : 5 ; : ; : . 911 
Specific Name and Geographical Derenacae . 893 Thorax . F : 5 , : : . 912 
Colour, Baleen, Size : : : : ; . 896 Pectoral Bibs : P ; : ‘ F . 913 
Skeleton . : : : 5 : ‘ ; . 898 Pelvic Bones . : : : : : F 3 Oily 
Skull . 3 : ; : F : ; . 898 Os Penis . : ; ¢ ; : : : . 919 
Hyoid . : ; 5 ; : : : . 901 Orbit. ‘ : c 6 3 ; : > BY 
Tympano-petrous. ‘ é : ; : . 903 Summary : : ‘ ; . 920 
Vertebral Column - : : . : . 904 Explanation of Plates and Hence : . A . 922 
Ribs. : ; : ; ; ; . 909 
HistoricaL INrRopUCTION. 
From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century a successful whale fishery was 
prosecuted in the Bay of Biscay and in the North Atlantic by seamen from the Basque 
ports of France and the north of Spain. So daring was their enterprise that they 
pursued their avocation northward to Iceland and even westward to Newfoundland and 
the adjoining shores of the American continent. The reputation of the Basque sailors 
as skilful whaling fishermen was so widely recognised that, when the whaling companies 
in England and Holland were started in the early years of the seventeenth century, 
Biseayan seamen were employed as the harpooners to strike the whales, and as coopers 
to construct the casks to contain the blubber. Up to that time the knowledge of 
the specific differences amongst the large whalebone whales was most imperfect, and 
it is not unlikely that both Right Whales and Fin Whales were captured as opportunity 
offered, though the former, from the greater length of whalebone and the thickness of 
blubber, were more prized. In 1611 an English whaling company sent for the first 
time an expedition to Spitzbergen, and from the instructions given to its commander, 
Tuomas Encs, it would seem that two kinds of Right Whales had even then been 
noticed, the one larger and more valuable from the oil which it yielded and the leagth 
of the baleen, now known as the Greenland Right Whale, Balena mysticetus, and the 
other a smaller whale, called the ‘‘ Sarda.” A whale captured off the coast of Iceland 
by the French and Spanish seamen, locally named ‘“‘ Sletbag,” was probably the same as 
the Right Whale the “Sarda.” With the development of the whale fishery in the Arctic 
Ocean, it became more evident that the Greenland Right Whale was distinct from the 
TRANS. ROY. SOC. EDIN., VOL. XLVIII., PART IV. (NO. 33). 132 
