Sept., 1885.] ELLIOTT SOCIETY. 101 



was first pursued for its oil and baleen by tbe Xew England wbalers. It was 

 almost exterminated by tbem, and then those hardy mariners were forced to 

 extend the hmits of theii' hunting gi-ounds and all the oceans of the globe be- 

 came the scenes of their exploits. It had never been scientifically described in 

 the early days of its pursuit, and consequently, after a long interval, during 

 which it was slowly increasing in numbers, the attention of naturalists became 

 dii-ected towards its identification. The first description of it as appearing on 

 the American coast was in 1719 by the Hon. Paul Dudley, F. R. S., in the 

 Philosophical Transactions of London, and no other scientific account of it was 

 ever given in America until Prof. Cope of Philadelphia published a short notice 

 in 1865, of a skeleton which has been for manj^ years in the Philadelphia Mu- 

 seum, and which had been stranded near the mouth of the Delaware Eiver 

 early in this century. There are three other well identified specimens in exis- 

 tence in the United States at present. These are an unmounted one in the 

 Museum of Comj)arative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass. , a mounted specimen in 

 the New York Museum, accurately described and illustrated by Dr. J. B. Hol- 

 der, and the specimen in the Charleston Museum. 



Prof. Cope gave the name of Balana cisarctica to the Philadelphia specimen, 

 but the result of the inquiries into its identity which have been the consequence 

 of Prof. Cope "s short paper and Dr. Holder's careful investigations, are that the 

 the Black ^\'hale of this coast is now considered to be the same animal as the 

 Biscay Whale, its proper scientific name is therefore BalcEna biscai/ensis, this 

 last having been given by Eschricht. 



As proof of the difficulties attending the separation into different species of 

 the right whales of the various oceans, it may be mentioned that even Cuvier 

 was imcertain whether there was any difference between the Biscay Whale and 

 the Greenland Whale, and for a long time the former was thought to be iden- 

 tical with the Cape Whale of the Southern oceans. To this day also it seems 

 uncertain whether the Cape Whale is the same as B. australis, of which there is a 

 mounted specimen from the coast of New Zealand in one of the couils of the 

 Jardin des Plantes, Paris. There can be no doubt however that the four 

 sx3ecimens of the Black A\Taale alreadj^ specified are entii-ely distinct from B. 

 mysticetus and B. australis, as the accompanying woodcuts representing the 

 crania of the three will easily show. 



As far as we know of B. mysticetus the length of the head is one-third the 

 total length of the body, whereas in the Black Whale the length of the head is 

 about one-fourth the total length. The relative lengths of head and body in 

 B. australis are not exactly known to the writer, but the figure 3 is taken from 

 a photogi-aph of the Paris whale and the head there appears to be one-third the 

 total length. The great distanc&s that separate the Greenland from the Ant- 

 arctic whales are sufficient of themselves to cause the conclusion that they are 

 of distinct species. The plate also of that whale, figui-e 3, shows many points 

 of difference between it and figure 2, B. mysticetus. 



In the woodcuts of the three whale heads the total length of body in each 

 one is supposed to be sixty feet, so that the proper ^Dorportions of head to bodj-- 



