List of the Fauna of the Count ij. Ill 



are not able to make excursions to those seas where the 

 different forms are most common. The discrimination of 

 species is rendered additionally puzzling in consequence of 

 each author on the subject adopting a classification and 

 nomenclature of his own, or at all events giving names to 

 varieties which other students may consider to belong to the 

 typical species. In the foregoing orders of Mammalia I 

 have been able to give the results of my own observations, 

 but here, of course, I must depend on records only, and shall 

 claim as belonging to our Essex fauna any cetaceans taken 

 in our rivers or on our coasts. Many of these records 

 are quite useless from the want of a correct description of 

 the animal. The terms "Bottle-nose," "Fin-back," and so 

 on, being evidently often very loosely and inaccurately 

 applied, and of no assistance in identifying the true name of 

 the captures, I have been obliged to pass over many observa- 

 tions from inability to recognise the species recorded. As 

 might be expected from its size, the Eiver Thames appears to 

 have been very productive in species, and the records are the 

 more valuable as the species have generally been identified 

 by competent naturalists, as a result of the ease of access to 

 London. 



MySTACOCETI. BAL^NOPTEKro^. 



Bal^enoptera musculus. The Eorqual. — This whale, one 

 of the largest animals, has occurred on our coasts several 

 times. One was taken in the Thames in May, 1859 ; and in 

 the ' Zoologist' for 1849, p. 2620, is recorded the capture of 

 a " finner whale" at Grays, of the length of 58 feet, and a 

 girth of 30 feet : judging by these dimensions it was probably 

 an example of this species. 



B. EOSTRATA. Lcsscr Eorqual. — This is one of the best 

 marked and most easily distinguished species of the family, 

 and at the same time one of the most common on our coasts. 

 It has occurred in the Thames several times, John Hunter 

 describing, in the ' Philosophical Transactions' for 1787, one 

 from this river ; another was also recorded and figured in the 

 ' Zoologist ' for 1843, p. 33, and is now preserved in the British 

 Museum. 



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