14 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



land and in the Orkney and Shetland Islands. We know, moreover, 

 that whales have always been stranded on the seaboard of western 

 Europe because their skeletons are frequently found in those deposits 

 that have been accumulating since the last retreat of the glacial Ice- 

 cap in bays and estuaries along the coasts. Notable among these 

 deposits are those that have accumulated and still are collecting in, 

 and gradually filling up, two inlets on the east coast of the British 

 Isles known as the Firth of Forth in Scotland and the Wash in Eng- 

 land. In the Wash, skeletons of the killer whale, bottle-nosed dolphin, 

 and the common porpoise have been found and also, strangely- 

 enough, of the arctic right whale, which, since the dawn of the 

 historical period at least, has been confined to the polar regions. 

 Those found in the Firth of Forth deposits are mostly blue whales 

 and finners, both of which are rorquals. 



In prehistoric times this latter arm of the sea used to extend some 

 twelve miles further inland as far as the site of the modern town 

 of Stirling. It is filling up rapidly but at one time it was much more 

 extensive and seems to have had a narrow strait about halfway in 

 from its mouth. Whales apparently often passed through this neck 

 with the incoming tide in pursuit of food and then, when the tide 

 ran out, got beached inside. Several of these whales' skeletons have 

 been found and four of them have given us most unexpected and 

 interesting information. 



The first record is that of a seventy-foot blue whale that was dug 

 up in 1 8 19 at a place called Aithrey. With it were found two 

 crooks of staghorn, one of which was perforated by a circular one- 

 inch hole, and both of which had obviously been fashioned and used 

 by men. The second whale was discovered four feet below a layer 

 of homogenous clay at Burnbank, near Blair Drummond, in 1824. 

 With it was another deer's antler with a circular hole and with 

 traces of a wooden handle that had been thrust through this and 

 lashed to the horn. The third example turned up at a place called 

 Meiklewood, in 1877, when a drain was being dug. It was also the 

 skeleton of a large rorqual and, actually resting on its skull, was 

 yet another perforated deer's antler, this time with a complete 

 wooden handle still inserted through the hole. The fourth example 

 came from Causewayhead in the same area and consisted of several 

 portions of a skeleton of a large whale that had obviously been taken 



