NOTES ON WHALING IN SHETLAND, 1904 71 



after suckling the calf for some time, the cow gets thin, it is 

 naturally a great strain upon her. I have pointed out that 

 the calf grows very quickly ; inspection of the mammary glands 

 shows that the cow produces an immense quantity of thick, 

 yellow milk, like cream, capable of supplying the calf with 

 abundance of rich nourishing food. 



PERIOD OF GESTATION AND AGE. 



These are questions at which we can only guess, nothing 

 definite being known about either. I am inclined to believe 

 that the period of gestation is not more than a year, perhaps 

 eleven months, for, as I have already said, it is a very quick- 

 growing creature. In this I am supported by whalers who have 

 had long experience and far better opportunities of studying 

 whales than I have. 



I think the rule is recognised that where an animal 

 arrives quickly at maturity the age it attains is short. I am 

 inclined to believe that forty years is about the limit of a 

 whale's life. I have noticed some whales have the blubber 

 hard and yellow, which indicates age, as hard yellow fat in 

 beef shows a cow to have been old. My friend Mr. Foden 

 told me he got a blue whale (B. sibbaldii] at Iceland with 

 grey hair at the end of the baleen, and evidently very old. 

 I can only hear of one case where a naturally dead whale 

 was found at sea, although the skipper of a Shetland smack 

 said his anchor once brought up some baleen plates ; but a 

 dead wild elephant in Ceylon is just as rare. Whales are 

 certainly subject to disease. I lately saw a bull Finner with 

 a tumour on the penis I 5 inches in diameter. After all, the 

 age of Finner whales, and the period of gestation, are sub- 

 jects upon which we can only speculate, and about which we 

 will probably never learn anything definite. In other species 

 of whales these may be different. Old Greenland whalers 

 here tell me they have seen the calf of Balcsna mysticetus, 

 only 12 feet long, accompanying the mother. 



BALEEN PLATES. 



From two Finners 67 feet long I counted the number of 

 baleen plates 375 a side. I only counted one side, as I 



