174 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



long distances up the rivers. White whale have 

 been recorded on the Yukon River at a distance of 

 seven hundred miles from the sea. In June, 1815, 

 a male beluga which had frequented the Firth of 

 Forth for three months was killed and dissected. 

 A paper on it was read by Mr. P. Neill before 

 the Wernerian Society on December 17th, 1816, 

 while Dr. Barclay gave an account of its anatomy 

 at the next meeting.^ The stomachs of these animals, 

 curiously enough, have been found to contain sand. 

 A school of beluga on migration is said to be a very 

 beautiful sight; the cetaceans ploughing through the 

 dark billows in snowy files, while the little auks flap 

 heavily along the heavin;^^ surface and the saddle- 

 back seals bask on the ice floes. Blue drift ice, 

 topped with creamy snow and shot with green under 

 the water line; and a distant glimpse of the mossy 

 valleys of Greenland, where the Arctic foxes bark 

 hue hue, and the whirring ptarmigan rise from under 

 the feet of the chance wayfarer, complete a picture 

 of wild life unrivalled for its silent charm and Arctic 

 beauty. 



Although the white whale is often the hunter, it 

 is also frequently the hunted, and that by the savage 

 orca or grampus, aptly styled by naturalists Orca 

 gladiator and by fishermen the "killer." These 



1 Len<;tli of this specimen 13 feet 4 inches ; girtli nearly 9 feet : an 

 immature animal. The iigure of a belujj:a lying on rocks in Rev. .1. G. 

 Wood's Natural History is apparently copied from Syme's figure of this 

 individual. 



