98 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



sent sea with that of the Crag, is the rarity of certain species in modern 

 times and their extreme abundance in times past. It is only at long in- 

 tervals that we see now on our shores some stray dolphin or a whale that 

 has wandered out of its way. The cetacean that we see stranded in our 

 latitudes is generally an isolated individual, which its troop have rejected 

 or the tempests have separated from its associates. It was not so when, 

 in other times, the numerous species of the Crag sea lived ; many of those 

 ^reat cetacea had there their regular stations, while others made periodic 

 visitations. In respect to their abundance and regular migrations, one 

 discovers even since the historic period very considerable changes, to which 

 the rapacity of man perhaps has not been foreign.* 



" It is known that in the ninth century the Basques . . . harpooned 

 the whale in the Gulf of G-ascony, and pursued it even as far as the North 

 Sea. Different charters prove that associations of whale-fishers, known 

 under the name of Societas or Communio Wahnamiormn, existed in the 11th 

 century on the coast of France. f These fisheries were so successful in the 

 Channel, that mention is made in these charters of the sale of the fresh 

 flesh. Nowadays it is truly an event if by chance one of these great ceta- 

 ceans presents itself in these latitudes. Cuvier, struck with this difference, 

 thought that the whales had fled before man, and that these animals no 

 longer found safety except amongst the reefs of polar ice. J 



" This explanation of the great naturalist, a,lthough generally accepted, 

 does not, however, accord with facts. The whale of the Channel is not the 

 same as the whale of the Polar circle. It is not without reason that for a 

 long time my friend Eschricht has opposed the hypothesis of Cuvier ; and 

 the former, the learned professor of Copenhagen, has shown that the Ice- 

 landers knew perfectly, as far back as the twelfth century, these giants of 

 the Channel from those of the North. In a m.anuscript of that distant pe- 

 riod, § the Iceland fishermen specified the characteristic differences of the 

 two species. II . . If the whale pursued by the Basques is not the Baleine 

 franche of the North — the M7/sticetus— what is it then? Has it ever 



* Amoiigst the migrations which have interested, us, we could cite two species which 

 visit rc giilaiiy the Feroe Isles since the most remote period, and still make their periodic 

 visilatioii. According to a legend of the country, a pagan giant, vanquished by a Chris- 

 tian, ))roinised him for ransom and pardon to send him every year a bird and a whale 

 which sliould be found nowhere else. The bird is the white crow, the whale the dogling 

 or hypcroodon.— Eschricht, Coraptes Eendus, t. xlvii. ; July, 1858. 



t C'uvicr makes mention of these charters, which were communicated to him by the 

 Abl).' (Ic la Hue. (See ' Ossements Fossiles,' 4me edit., t. 5, Ire partie, p. 74.) 



X Tlif ilhistiious saim/t could not speak with exact knowledge of the Mysticetus, 

 or of tlic Northern whale, because he had never seen a specimen. At the present time 

 even Ihcre is not a skeleton of this curious animal either at Paiis or in London. There 

 is known one e.xample at Copenhagen, and a second has since been acquired by the 

 Koyal iMuseum at Brussels. The other chief portions of this whale known are, a fine 

 adult sknll al Kiel, another head at Loudon, and the head of a young animal at Leyden. 



§ ' K():iL:-S!;ii--Sio, Det Konglige Speil, den Konigligen Spiegel,' or ' Royal Mirror,' 

 nn Icelandic manuscript of the twelfth century.— B. " (See afso M. Eeinhardt on the 

 IsIiT'^^''^''^ ' " * Nordhvalen' {Balana mysticetus, L.), in 4to, Kiobenhavn, 



_* The Icelanders di:-! in-iiish the two species of whale as that of the North (North 

 \Mialo) and that of ihe South. The last bears on its skin white calcareous crowns, 

 which (lie other never does. These white crowns are cirrhipedes, which develop and 

 propagate tjicmselves on the back of that marine monster. . . . Each s])ecies of 

 whale has its peculiar eirrhipedrs. Some have the Coronnla ; others the J)iader„a ; 

 and oilicrs again the TuljicineUa hist burv thonselves several inches deep into the 



skin and the fat, * ^ 



