THE OAR-FISH, OR KING OF THE HERRINGS 151 



on the coast of East Lothian, at the mouth of the Firth 

 of Forth, in May of the present year. The circumstances 

 are as follows : 



About mid-day on Saturday, 23rd May 1908, three hours 

 or so after full tide, a fisherman gathering bait came upon 

 this specimen lying among the rocks about a mile east of 

 Dunbar, close to where the stream which issues from Brox- 

 mouth Park enters the sea. Though, according to my 

 informant, dead, and, unfortunately, considerably mutilated 

 about the head, it was quite fresh, and could only have been 

 a very short time stranded. In all probability it had come 

 in with the morning tide in a dying state, and sustained the 

 injuries referred to by being tumbled about on the rocks. 

 Never having seen anything like it before, and thinking they 

 had secured a prize, the fisherman and two of his mates, to 

 whom he had reported his discovery, carried the creature into 

 Dunbar, by means of cords fastened round its long silvery 

 body. In the evening it was exhibited in the Corn Exchange 

 Hall at a nominal charge, when hundreds of people went 

 to see it. Sunday intervening, it was not till Monday 

 morning that news of the fish reached me. On arriving at 

 Dunbar by the forenoon train, I learned from Mr. D. Bruce 

 that it had been removed to a shed at the harbour, where I 

 soon had the pleasure of inspecting an undoubted Oar-fish 

 measuring, as already stated, 13^ feet in length. Prepara- 

 tions for carting it to Haddington and other places for 

 exhibition were being made ; but these were fortunately 

 arrested by the arrival, during the afternoon, of Mr. P. H. 

 Grimshaw from the Royal Scottish Museum, for which 

 institution it was purchased by him, and dispatched the same 

 evening to Rowland Ward, Ltd., London, to be preserved 

 and mounted. 



Unfortunately, the specimen, like practically all the others 

 that have been described, is imperfect as regards those re- 

 markable appendages about which precise information is so 

 much needed. Nevertheless the following description of it, 

 based on my own examination, supplemented by some further 

 details kindly supplied by the taxidermists, may perhaps 

 prove useful : 



Sex, male ; this was determined by the taxidermists. 



