had been sent to Sydney with the blubber ; but as I soon 

 found it on Hughes' Wharf, in Sussex street, I then, by 

 permission of Colonel Baddeley, of the Royal Engineers, 

 carried the whole of the bones in my possession to Pinchgut 

 Island, where, under a course of lime and other preparations, at 

 the end of two months they were thoroughly bleached and 

 freed from oil and all offensive odour. As to the lost fin, 

 every hope of recovering it had been abandoned, when I was 

 informed by two boys that a strange fish was lying on a rock 

 near the bath, in A\^ooloomooloo Bay. This, fortunately, 

 turned out to be the part missing, which, by the way, was 

 by far the most interesting of the two fins, as it was the right 

 one, the bones of which are considerably larger than those of 

 the left, and also more perfect. The fin had been removed 

 from the whale by the crew of a coasting vessel, while they 

 were wind-bound in Wooloomooloo Bay. Their object was 

 to render it down into oil; but a fair wind springing up 

 before they had time to effect their purpose, they cut it adrift, 

 when it probably floated to the place where the boys so for- 

 tunately discovered it. 



I state these facts in order to show the obstacles which I 

 had to encounter before I was enabled to obtain so perfect an 

 assemblage of the bones. Those finally deficient turned out to 

 be merely the bones of the pelvis, which were most likely to 

 escape our notice, from not being articulated to any of the 

 other bones, but only suspended in the flesh of the belly. 

 Shortly, however, after the skeleton had been set up, I heard 

 of another sperm whale having been killed off* the Heads of 

 Botany Bay, and that it had been washed ashore on the 

 sandy beach that extends between that Bay and Port Hacking. 

 I was resolved to complete my collection of the bones, but 

 experienced considerable difficulty in discovering the carcass 

 of this last whale, as it was nearly buried in the sand. It 

 proved to be that of a female, a little larger than the 

 other. With some danger from the heavy surf which 

 broke over it I contrived to secure the two pelvic bones of 

 the right side and also the atlas and axis, with a complete 



