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Proceedings of the Boycd Society 
the Scottish seas than we know it to he at the present day, or 
indeed to have been for some centuries past. 
But I think it very questionable if the interpretation given by 
Professor Munch of the old word Reyftar can be regarded as 
zoologically correct. Torfseus, the historian of Greenland, in his 
account of the cetacea which frequent the Greenland and Iceland 
seas,* uses the term Reidr three times in his description of these 
whales. One he terms Hrafnreidr, white in colour, of a length of 
fourteen or sixteen cubits, “branchiis etiam preeditus,” and tastes 
well. A second, called Hafreidr, a whale of sixty cubits, or a little 
more, which carries a small horn, and is most pleasant to eat. The 
third is named Reidr, or most usually Steipireidr, which, he says, 
surpasses all others in sweetness, is gentle, and not to be feared by 
ships. The largest which has been caught by the Northmen equals 
130 cubits, is very fat, “ branchiis gaudet,” but wants teeth. This 
description by Torfeeus is much wanting in precision, and the state¬ 
ment that the Hrafnreidr and Reidr possess branchiae would lead 
one to say, if this term were understood by him in the sense in 
which it is now employed, that these animals were not whales, but 
fishes. It is probable, however, that the so-called branchiae in 
Hrafnreidr and Steipireidr may be the plates of whalebone which 
depend from the roof of the mouth of the baleen whales, and which 
have a laminar arrangement not unlike the gills of a fish, and 
might readily be mistaken for such by an inexperienced observer. 
The absence of teeth, however, conclusively shows that these could 
not be sperm whales. 
Otho Fabricius, in his “ Fauna Groenlandica,”f identifies the 
Hrafnreidr of Torfaeus with the fin-whale named by Linnams 
Balcena hoops; and the Reidr or Steipereidur with the Balcena 
musculus of the same naturalist. By Otho F. Muller,i the term 
Reider or Reydur is applied to two species of Baleen whales. 
Mohr also, in his Natural History of Iceland, § adopts the classifica¬ 
tion of Fabricius; and Erik Jonsson, in his Dictionary of old Norse 
terms,|| accepts the definition of the above naturalists. Further, 
* Gronlandia Antiqua, pp. 90, 96. Havnise, 1706. 
f Hafnise, 1780, p 36, et seq. 
i Zoologies DanicEe prodromus. Hafnite, 1776. 
§ Forsog til en Islandsk Naturhistorie. Copenhagen. 1786. 
|| Oldnordisk Ordbog. Copenhagen, 1863. 
