BOTTLE-NOSE WHALE IN THE BED OF THE TYNE. 51 



In another shop I discovered six out of the seven cervical 

 vertebrae, broad, thin, and anchylosed into one mass, as is usual 

 in the Cetacea, and a scapula, with perfect and imperfect verte- 

 brae of the back and tail. None of the parts of the jaws containing 

 teeth were seen. The bones appeared to be those of an adult Hype- 

 roodon; they were not measured, but the osseous system had 

 not been quite perfected, since some of the bones showed the 

 non-consolidation of their epiphyses to the central part. The skull 

 in the Museum above alluded to measures 6 ft. 4 in. in length, 

 2 ft. 11 in. in height, and 3 ft. 1 in. across the occiput, and ap- 

 pears to have belonged to an adult ; the specimen under notice, 

 though a good deal mutilated, could not have been much inferior 

 in size. The bones had been, only a day or two before the visit, 

 fished out from the mud of the river bed opposite to the upper 

 part of the site of the great explosion of 1854, having been dis- 

 covered at a very low ebb tide, the lofty cranium appearing above 

 the surface of the water. 



From so many of the bones having been found together it 

 may be inferred that the whole skeleton was there; and from 

 the perfectly macerated state of the bones, no trace of soft parts 

 being left upon them, they had doubtless rested where they 

 were found many years. How the skeleton came to the above 

 spot gives room for conjecture. At first it was surmised that it 

 might have been brought by some whale ship from the Arctic 

 Seas, and being unsaleable at the time of arrival, and inconve- 

 nient as a cabinet specimen, had been pitched overboard. On 

 making inquiry, however, of Mr. Palmer, our great authority 

 here in matters connected with the whale fishery, he informs me 

 that the whale ships of the Tyne never came near the place, and 

 his opinion is, that it must have belonged to " a fish" that had 

 strayed up the river by some chance and died there — an opinion 

 corroborated by the mention I find made by John Hunter (see 

 " Bell's British Quadrupeds," page 493) of a Bottle-nose caught 

 above London Bridge, having wandered up the Thames. It 

 may be concluded, then, that this huge Cetacean did die on the 

 spot, or having died elsewhere, it had been washed by the tide 



