98 
TITE GEOLOGIST. 
sent sea -with that of the Crao^, 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 
great 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 ^^ hale in the Gulf of Gascony, and pursued it even as far as the North 
Sea. Different charters prove that associations of whale-fishers, known 
under the name of Socieias or Communio JValmannorum, 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. IS[owadays 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 \cq.X 
This explanation of the great naturalist, although 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 kiiew perfectly, as far back as the twelfth century, these giants of 
the Channel from those of the North. In a manuscript of that distant pe- 
riod,§ the Iceland fishermen specified the characteristic difierences of the 
two species. II . . If the whale pursued by the Basques is not the Baleine 
franche of the North — the Mysticetus — what ia it then? Has it ever 
* Amongst the migratious which have interested us, we could cite two species which 
visit regularly the Feroe Isles since the most remote period, aud still make their periodic 
visitation. According to a legend of the country, a pagan giant, vanquished by a Chris- 
tian, promised him for ransom and pardon to send him every year a bird aud a whale 
which should be found nowhere else. The bird is the while crow, the whale the dogliug 
or hyperoodon. — Eschricht, Comptes Eendus, t. xlvii. ; July, 1858. 
t Cuvier makes mention of these charters, which were communicated to him by the 
Abbe de la Rue. (See ' Ossements Fossiles,' 4me edit., t. 5, Ire partie, p. 74.) 
X The illustrious savant could not speak with exact knowledge of the Mysticetus, 
or of the Northern whale, because he had never seen a specimen. At the present time 
even there is not a skeleton of this curious animal either at Paris or in Loudon. There 
is known one example at Copenhagen, and a second has since been acquired by the 
Royal Museum at Brussels. The other chief portions of this whale known are, a fine 
adult skull at Kiel, another head at London, and the head of a young animal at Leyden. 
§ ' Koag-Skug-Sio, Det Konglige Speil, den Konigligen Spiegel,' or ' Royal iNIirror,* 
an Icelandic manuscript of the twelfth century. — B. (See also M. Reinhardt on the 
" Tranches " whales, ' Om Xordhvalen' {Balcena mysticetus, L.), in 4to, Kiobeuhavn, 
* The Icelanders distinguish the two species of whale as that of the North (North 
"Whale) and that of the South. The last bears on its skin white calcareous crowns, 
which the other never does. These white crowns are cirrhipedes, which develop and 
propagate themselves on the back of that marine monster. . . . Each species of 
whale has its peculiar cirrhipedes. Some have the Coronvia ; others the Diadem a ; 
aud others again the Tubicinei/a,— the last bury themselves several inches deep into the 
skin and the fat. 
