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1. On a Specimen of Balœnoptera borealis or laticeps captured in the Firth of Forth
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2014
Extract
In September 1872 a whale of some magnitude was seen floundering in shallow water at Snab, Kinneil, about a mile from Bo'ness, on the Firth of Forth. Some men proceeded to the spot and fastening a rope round its tail, hauled it closer to the shore, and then killed it. I was not at home at the time, but on reading a notice of its capture in the Scotsman of September 26, I wrote to my assistant, the late Mr A. B. Stirling, to go and see the animal.
- Type
- Proceedings 1881-82
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1882
References
page 516 note * See my account of this animal in Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., 1870, vol xxvi.
page 517 note * Ostéographie des Cétacés, p. 202.
page 517 note † See reference in The Fauna of Scotland, “Mammalia,” by E. R. Alston, Glasgow, 1870. Also, in a letter to myself, in reply to a communication on the subject.
page 517 note ‡ Proc. Zool. Soc. London, Nov. 8, 1864.
page 517 note § Rudolphi named this animal Balœna rostrata. Abhand. der Akad. der Wissensch. zu Berlin, 1820, 1821.
page 517 note ║ Translation of Lilljeborg's Memoir on the Scandinavian Cetacea, in publications of Ray Society.
page 517 note ¶ Ostéographie des Cétacés, p. 201.
page 518 note * Ostéographie des Cétacés, p. 302.
page 518 note † Comptes Rendas, 27th. Dec. 1876, p. 1298, vol. lxxxiii.; and Journal de Zoologie, vol. v. p. 462, 1876.
page 518 note ‡ In Nature, 12th Oct. 1876, is a reference to the Schriften der naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Dantzig, which contains photographs of the skeleton of a whale, said to be Pterobalœna laticeps (Gray), stranded in Dantzig Bay in 1874, but as I have not been able to obtain a copy of the Dantzig publication, can make no further reference to it. I observe that in the Archiv für Naturgeschichte, 1875, 41st year, third part, p. 338, is an elaborate description, by Professor Zaddach of Königsberg, of a female fin whale, stranded in August 1874, between Neufahrwasser, the harbour of Dantzig, and the village of Heubude. He names it Balœnoptera museulus. Its vertebral formula is C7D14L15Cd24 = 60, and the baleen is described as yellow like horn, with bluish-green or blackish spots at the outer border. Its length was 10·98 mètres (about 36 feet English). Professor Zaddach states that he does not give a detailed description of the skeleton, as the Dantzig Society of Natural History had decided to publish a description of it, with drawings and photographs, in their Schriften, from the pen of Professor Menge. Can this be the specimen referred to in Nature? The colour of the baleen and the vertebral formula (probably the last two caudals had not been ossified and preserved) show its affinity to B.musculus rather than to B. laticeps.
page 523 note 1 Catalogue of Seals and Whales, and Supplement.
page 523 note 2 The so-called two-headed ribs in Whales and in Man, Jour. of Anat. and Phys. vol. v.
page 527 note 1 Proc. Zool. Soc., London, Nov. 8, 1864.