FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE. 



99 



been seen by any naturalist? Is it tbe Southevu wbale in wliicb tlie 

 Durcb. whalers have thought they hare recognized their ' JN'orth-Caper ' ? 

 Has it disappeared siiiee this fishery was estabhshed, like so many other 

 kinds which have been annihilated within historic times ?* There is 

 need of facts to dissipate these doubts ; the best arguments do not suf- 

 fice. But can one ever hope to find them for these delicate and dif- 

 ficult questions ? In these uncertainties, zoologists, not knowing whe- 

 ther to think Cuvier right or the Iceland fishermen, were in great com- 

 motion some years since in respect to an event which happened in the 

 Gulf of Gascony. This was in January, 1854. It is at this period of 

 the year that the ancient whales arrive there regularly to take their 

 winter station. A mother-whale, accompanied by its cub, made its appear- 

 ance at St. Sebastian one day in January, and fortunately' the young 

 whale was captured. The Museum of Pampeluna made the acquisition of 

 it. Eschricht heard this news at Copenhagen ; nothing passed in the 

 world of whales that he was not informed of. 'It is m}' Biscay whale,' 

 said he ; ' the species still exists.' He trembled at the idea that the trea- 

 sure might escape him. He arrived at Louvain nearly at the same time as 

 the letter by which he informed me of the news ; announced to the Insti- 

 tute of France the motive of his passage to Paris ;t arrived at Pampeluna, 

 made his way at once to the coast, and buried himself in the midst of the shore 

 in the study of the bones of the liead and of the vertebrae of this precious 

 relic. The victory was his. This whale difl'ered completely from that of 

 the North. J It was really a remnant of those ancient legions which once 

 on a time visited these latitudes in numerous bands, and which have since 

 deserted these places. On our coast the whales stranded since the begin- 

 ning of this century have been far from numerous, and we could easily 

 enumerate them. Several years since, . . de Selys-Longchamps men- 

 tioned them in his Belgian ' Pauna.' There are but two balenoptera ; 

 the one of Xessels, found dead at sea in 1827 by the Ostend fishermen, § 



* We know that since the historic peridd many species have abandoned the centre of 

 Europe, and that others have also completely disappeared. . . . The reindeer and 

 elk have quitted the interior of Europe since the extinction of the mammoths. The 

 Dodo and the Alca hnpennis have undoubtedly completely disappeared. We are fortu- 

 nately not altogether certain of the latter. It is believed that the Ri/thina Stelleri, the 

 singular sirenian of the Behring Sea, is equally lost; but we have had great satisfaction 

 in seeing that the Museum of St. Petersburg has j-eceived a complete skeleton. Nord- 

 maun, ' Palaoutologie Sued-Russlands,' Helsingiors, lb59-60, p. 328. 



i' ' Comptes Rendus de I'Academie des Sciences/ sitting July 12th, 1858. 



% ' Sur les Baleines franches du Golfe de Biscaye,' in Comptes Reudus, 1860. In a 

 letter dated from Copenhagen, Eschricht had the kindness to inform me of the result of 

 his researches on the dilierence of these two species of whales. " The skeleton of Pam- 

 peluna has entirely occupied me," he wrote on the 18th May. " It is the most curious 

 of any that I' have met. It is nearly mounted, and the enormous difference between it 

 and the Mijsiicetus surpasses all I had expected before my sojourn at Pampeluna. Fi- 

 gure to yourself," he added, " that it is not more developed than the skeleton of a Mys- 

 ticetus of less than a year ; the ossification of the vertebrae has not advanced beyond 

 the transverse apophyses ; and the arches, which are not even united on both sides, are still 

 separated from the body, whilst the vertebral column is as large as that of a Mijsticetus 

 of three years and a half." Eschricht, ' Developpement du questionnaire relatif aux Ce- 

 taces,' in ' Actes de la Societe Liuueenue de Bordeaux,' t. xxii., 4me hvr. 



§ Van Breda, ' Eenige Bijsonderheden omtrent den Walrisch die den 5 November 

 1827 bij Ostende gestrand is,' in Algemeine Konst en Letterbode, 1827, 2e vol. 



Vanderhnden, Bibl. Ined. Nat. et Etrang., t. v., 1028.—' Bydragen tot de Natu- 

 rahsche Wetensch.,' 4de deel, 1829. — Messag. des Sciences, 1329, Du Bar, ' Osteogra^ 

 phie de la Baleine,' Bruxelles, 1828; 



