igo STRANDING OF A COMMON RORQUAL WHALE 



The action of the Kssex County Council in enforcing the 

 Bird Preservation Act and protecting the area of the coast ' has 

 done and is doing a great work for which all lovers of nature and 

 wild life must feel grateful, but constant vigilance is still needed, 

 and rigorous prosecution of offenders should be strictly enforced. 

 December 6th, 1899. 



I The County Council of Essex took action in this matter at the suggestions of the Essex 

 Field Club set out in a petition to the Council presented in the spring of 1895 (see text of 

 Petition with explanatory details, in Essex Naturalist, vol. ix., pp. 42-47). After con- 

 siderable delay, the order protecting the Shore-birds was issued by the Home Secretary on 

 February 6th, 1896, as mentionedin Mr. Champion B Russell's article, E.N., vol. ix., pp. 218-222. 

 The beneficent effects of this Order is shewn in the reports on the " Protection of Wild Birds 

 in Essex " in subsequent parts of our Journal. — Ed. 



STRANDING OF A COMMON RORQUAL WHALE 

 IN THE THAMES AT NORTH WOOL\A^ICH, 



ESSEX. 



ABOUT nine o'clock on the morning of Monday, the 27th 

 November last (1899), a great Whale appeared in the 

 Thames in the stretch of the river called Gallions Reach, which 

 runs from the Albert Docks to Barking Creek. Several tugs 

 went out to capture the animal. It is stated by the reporters 

 that for four hours the tugs chased the visitor from Trip Cock 

 Point to Silvertown Petroleum Works, and " the whale 

 responded by whisking her tail vigorously and drenching the 

 hunters with dirt)' Thames water." At last it was run ashore 

 near the ferry opposite the Pavilion Hotel, North Woolwich, and 

 there done to death, but not without a tremendous struggle. 

 One news[)aper stated that the whale " gave a magnificent 

 spouting exhibition just before the end. Onlookers estimated the 

 spout of water at 40 or 50 feet high " (!)- The whale was a 

 female, measuring 66 feet 7 inches long, with a girth of 33 feet, 

 and was estimated to weigh about 30 tons. On the Wednesday, 

 the mammal, which had been rapidly decomposing, burst, and 

 disclosed two calves. Some men slit the body open and delivered 

 the young ones, one living about 20 minutes and the other only 

 a very short time. During the night one was stolen, but one 

 remained on exhibition with its mother. It measured 17ft. gin. 

 with a girth of 7 feet. 



The animal was announced in the papers as a " Bottle-nosed 

 Whale " but this was clearly an error, and in a letter Mr. R. 

 Lydekker, F.R.S., has kindly given us the correct name of the 

 species. Mr. Lydekker writes, " I myself went down to look at 



2 .As iTiost of our reidcrs linow, this spout of " water " is in reality a column of air from 

 the lungs highly charged with vapour and possibly carrying up with it some of the water 

 surroundin the " blow-hole " of the whale should it spout froin below the surface. 



