WHALES LANDED AT SCOTTISH WHALING STATIONS 203 



something in the neighbourhood of 10 per cent, to the actual 

 length of the body in a straight line. If we attempt to 

 compare the length of the Nordcaper with that of the 

 Greenland whale we are in a further difficulty, for there is 

 an extraordinary lack of trustworthy information as to this 

 latter. Even in regard to Scoresby's measurements (and 

 there are only some half-dozen of them) we are left in doubt 

 as to whether they were taken in a straight line or along the 

 curve. In any case the largest "right" whale Scoresby ever 

 saw was " about 60 feet long," the largest he measured was 

 58 feet, and the next largest, a male, was 52 feet long; the 

 largest of Eschricht's skeletons was 47^ feet long, but these 

 were probably Danish feet equivalent to nearly 50 English 

 feet. In Eschricht's opinion "some Greenland whales, 

 at least, do not attain a greater length than 46 English feet, 

 though it seems that others may grow longer, even by 

 as much as a third." On the whole, though B. biscayensis 

 has the reputation of being considerably smaller than 

 its Arctic relative, we have no clear evidence as to the fact ; 

 and there would seem to be little difference, if any at all, 

 between them. 



The records of the girth of these whales are somewhat 

 puzzling, and I am not sure how far they are to be relied on. 

 It is a troublesome business to measure the girth of a whale, 

 and when it has to be entered in a compulsory schedule it 

 would not be surprising to find it done in a perfunctory way. 

 Taking all our sixty-seven Nordcapers together, the average 

 girth, according to the measurements given, is just about 

 63 per cent, of the length of the fish ; that is to say, a whale 

 of average size, say 47J feet long, would have a girth of 

 30 feet. The average girth of twenty-two Nordcapers, from 

 46 to 49 feet long, was rather more than this, about 32 feet. 

 But there were, not unnaturally, very great discrepancies ; and 

 the curious fact appears that our sixty-seven whales appear 

 to fall into two series, fat and lean, with comparatively few 

 intermediate ones, the former having a girth equal to some 

 70 or even 80 per cent, of their length, the latter with 

 a girth of from about 35 to 50 or 60 per cent. I was 

 at first inclined to discard these records altogether, for they 



