igoo.] ScHARFF. — Irish Cetacca. 85 



Hump-backed Whale- lYIegraptcra boops, Linn. 



(Plate 3, fig. 3). 



This wliale, apart from its conspicuous hump on the back, is easily 

 distinguished from all others by the enormously long and narrow white 

 flippers. They are about one-fourth the total length of the body, which 

 averages between 40 and 50 feet. 



To Mr. Robert Warren, of Ballina, belongs the credit not only of being 

 the first to describe this species from the Irish coast, but also of 

 capturing the wliale which came ashore at Enniscrone, Co. Sligo(XXII., 

 p. 1 19 ) It is entirely owing to his speedy efforts that this Hump-backed 

 Whale (immature female) was secured for the Dublin Museum, where the 

 skeleton is preserved. The cranium of a Hump-backed Wliale, dredged 

 up in the Irish Sea, is now in the Liverpool Museum. 



Sibbald's Rorouat^— Balaenoptera Sibbaldi, Gray. 



This is not only the largest whale, but also the largest of all living 

 animals. It agrees with the next two species of whales in the possession 

 of numerous closely-set groovings in the skin of the throat, but differs 

 from them in the colour of the body, which is dark bluish-grey, and in 

 the whalebone being black. The adult reaches a length of from 80-90 

 feet. 



It was first definitely recorded as Irish by Mr. Crouch (XIII., p. 215). 

 This record refers to a specimen which was stranded in March, 1891, in 

 Wexford Harbour, and subsequently sold to the British Museum. A 

 photograph of this whale, which was 82 feet long, is in the Dublin 

 Museum. Further particulars were afterwards supplied by Mr. Barrett- 

 Hamilton (III., p. 306). Although this was the first properly identified 

 Irish specimen of Sibbald's Rorqual, it is highly probable that 

 some of the more indefinite records which we possess, refer to the same 

 species, among them at least three of those mentioned by Thompson, 

 viz. ; the whale stranded in December, 1857, in Bantr}^ Bay (XX., p. 57), 

 and those cast up at Castletownsend (p. 58) in 1767, and Glandore in 

 1S44 (p. 59). The length of the first was given as 94 feet, and that of the 

 other two as 85 and 84 feet. 



Common Rorouai, — Balaenoptera musculus, F. Cuv. 



The Common Rorqual is smaller than the last-mentioned species, being 

 never more than from 60-70 feet in length. The general colour is slate- 

 grey above and white beneath. The whalebone is of a bluish-grey — not 

 deep black as in the last species, and often mottled with white. A 

 skeleton is in the Dublin Museum from Bantry Bay, and several of 

 Thompson's records (XX , p. 56-60) no doubt refer to this species, which 

 is fairly common in the British seas. Some of these records may possibly 

 refer to Rudolphi's Rorqual {^Balanoptera borealis), but the descriptions 

 are too meagre to identify the latter from them. 



A 2 



