100 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
and which, prepaved as a skeleton with much care by M. Parefc, after having 
visited during twenty years the principal towns of Europe, continues at the 
present time, it appears, its peregrinations in the New World. It is the 
Ftei'ohalana giffas. The other balenoptera belongs to the small species, 
which does not exceed thirty feet in length, and which has always forty- 
eight vertebrae ; it is the TterohalcBna minor of Knox, or the Pterohalana 
Tostvata of Fabricius.* The skeleton preserved in the Zoological Garden 
of Antwerp belonged to an individual stranded on the coast of Holland, 
and is of a third species, the PterohalcBna communis.'Y 
" The Academy will remember that we entertained it three years ago 
■with the Dolphin Glohiceps, found dead at sea by the fishermen of Heyst 
Tinder very interesting circumstances. It was a mother, which at first 
they had taken for a barrel, and which was on the point of going down.;]; 
" It is the same animal which the Feroe islanders look out for every 
year with such great anxiety, and whose flesh is esteemed by them a de- 
licious dish.§ The Grindewahl — for that is the name they give them — 
make their appearance in these isles with the thrushes and woodcocks else- 
where ; with this difFercncej that the thrushes and woodcocks figure only 
on the tables of the rich, whilst the flesh of the grindewahl is the food 
of the poor. It is by thousands that they are taken every year ; and one 
of the most curious spectacles which can be given to a sovereign is a fishery 
of the grindewalil in one of the fiords of Feroe, made in the presence of the 
King of Denmark when he visits these isles. But the most formidable of 
the cetaceans which visit our latitudes is the orca, or ork. We see it 
from time to time on our coasts. Two individuals of this dangerons spe- 
cies, a young and an adult female, were stranded in 1843-44 near Ostend, 
and an adult female was found dead on the strand in 1848. The ork is by 
far the most formidable of all the great marine animals ; the colossal 
whale, even, is not exempt from his vigorous attacks ; it is truly the con- 
sternation of all. Nothing is more curious than to listen to the tales of the 
fishermen of Greenland and Spitzbergen of the habits of these marine mon- 
sters. What violence in the struggle, what tenacity in the attack ! One 
would think one was listening to the recitals of travellers in the deserts of 
Africa, narra,tiug the gigantic siruggles of the groat mammifers, the ter- 
rible assaults made by tlie lions and tigers on the elephants, the buffalos, 
or antelopes. The first of August of tliis year^ a fine male lost itself on the 
coast of Jutland. Intelligence was sent immediately to Copenhagen, and 
Professor Eschricht made his way to the place. He wished to know above 
all on what this animal had fed during its last hours ; and he soon disco- 
vered that not without reason the ork is the terror of the seas. It con- 
tained in its stomach (one would hardly have supposed it) thirteen por- 
oises and fifteen seals ! My learned friend searched with a feeling of 
orror whether amongst this frightful mass of victims he could not find 
* This species comes regularly ashore ou the coast of Norway. Near Eergeri, they 
take them every year. Fabricius knew it well in Greenland, but he erred in giving it 
the name proposed by Linuajus, who did not know the whales. This exaraijle shows 
that it is not always the name of the first author which onght to be preserved. There 
exists a skeleton of this species in the Royal Museum of Brussels ; another, of a young 
individual stranded at Ostend, is in the Cabinet of the University of Ghfent ; and a third, 
iVom Greenland, formed a long time ago part of the collection of the Cathohc University 
of Louvain. 
t Bulletin de I'Academie, t. xxiv., No. 3. 
X ' Recherches sur la Faune littorale de Belgique (Cetaces).' Mem. de I'Acad. Roy. 
de Belgique, t. xxxii. 
§ Comptes Rendus, t. xlvii., July 12, 1858. 
