CHAPTER XXI 



Whales 



F 



OR a student primarily of reptiles I have had a singu- 

 lar number of opportunities to add interesting species of 

 whales to the collection of the Museum. 



The first occasion was in my twenty-third year when 

 I read in a local paper that a small whale had come ashore 

 at North Long Branch, New Jersey. My family were 

 spending the summer at Monmouth Beach that year and 

 I purchased a large butcher knife and walked to North 

 Long Branch. I found that the little whale was being ex- 

 hibited and that its owner would continue in this way to 

 capitalize his find until the Board of Health intervened. 

 The Board did intervene a few days later and I proceeded, 

 having had the whale photographed, to cut off its head. 

 I wanted to rough out the whole skeleton, but cutting off 

 the head was a fearful ordeal and I got myself covered 

 with such stinking gurry that I was ashamed to enter the 

 house when I got home. I packed the skull in a barrel with 

 salt and ice and shipped it to the Museum in Cambridge. 

 When I got back to Cambridge I asked where it was and 

 was gruffly told by my superior that it had been sent to 

 the North Cambridge dump. I went up there and by great 

 good luck found it, although it had been somewhat dam- 

 aged by dogs. Nevertheless, enough remained for my friend. 

 Dr. Glover Allen, to write an important paper on the find 

 — for the species represented was a very rare one. 



