236 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



such who may wish to contribute towards the object in view. Any 

 contribution you may kindly send will be gratefully acknowledged 

 by Your obedient servants, 



WILLIAM MORRISON, Treasurer. 



ALEX. MURRAY, Session Clerk. 



ZOOLOGICAL NOTES. 



Lesser Rorqual (Balanoptera rostrata (Fabricius)) in the Firth 

 of Clyde. On jth August 1897 the small steam whaler "Thrasher," 

 belonging to the Cape Fisheries Company, Ltd., while on her trials 

 on the Firth of Clyde, harpooned and killed a whale off Largs. The 

 carcase was towed to Messrs. Caird and Co.'s shipbuilding yard, 

 Greenock, and in an advertisement offering it for sale at $ it was 

 said to be thirty (30) ft. long. The lips found their way to Paisley 

 Museum, where I recently saw them, and Mr. J. M. B. Taylor, the 

 curator, kindly gave me a photograph of them. From the illustrations 

 accompanying Professor Sir Wm. Turner's article ' On the Lesser 

 Rorqual (Bal&noptera rostrata) in the Scottish Seas' ("Proc. Roy. 

 Soc. Edin.," 1893, vol. xix. pp. 36-75), I formed the opinion that this 

 was the species of the Largs whale, and on submitting the photograph 

 to Mr. Oldfield Thomas of the British Museum (Natural History), 

 he has favoured me with the following reply : " The whale appears 

 to be the Lesser Pike Whale (Balanoptera acuto-rostrata), commonly 

 known simply as B. rostrata, though the above is its correct name." 

 (As regards! the name, see Mr. Thomas's article in the "Zoologist," 

 March 1898; and also Mr. F. W. True, 'On the Nomenclature of 

 the Whalebone Whales of the loth edition of Linnaeus's Systema 

 Natures] in the "Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum, 1898, 

 vol. xxi. pp. 617-635, where a conclusion independently arrived at, 

 but similar to that of Mr. Thomas, is expressed.) So far as I am aware, 

 this is an addition to the known fauna of the Clyde waters, although it 

 is not improbable that whales which we occasionally hear of in the Firth 

 as " fmners " may belong to this species. 



I would take this opportunity of saying that I shall be glad to 

 receive definite information, with details, regarding Clyde cetaceans 

 and seals, and particularly news of any recent occurrences, as I am 

 endeavouring to ascertain the present status of the marine mammalia 

 of our waters. -- HUGH BOYD WATT, 101 St. Vincent Street, 

 Glasgow. 



The Bottle-nosed Whale in the Clyde. Judging from the 

 extreme paucity of records of the occurrence of the Common 

 Bottle-nosed Whale (Hyperoodon rostratus, Mull.), one might be led 

 to consider it as a rare species in Clyde ; but, while little known 



