102 CETACEA 



LESSEE KOrtQUAL. 



Bal.enoptera rostrata {Fab.). 



The Lesser Eorqual seems to enter the North Sea more 

 frequently than its congeners, and as a consequence more 

 examples of it have occurred in our waters. It can only 

 be looked upon, however, as an occasional visitant. 



On 15th May 1832, one 14 feet in length was captured 

 in the salmon stake-nets near Largo (" Magazine of Natural 

 History," v., p. 570), and about two years later (February 

 1834) Dr Knox obtained a young one, 9 feet 11 inches in 

 length, from "near the Queensferry" ("Proc." Eoy. Soc. Edin., 

 i., p. 63 ; and "Naturalists' Library," "Whales," p. 143). The 

 next I have a note of was found in the sea, apparently dead, 

 near the Bell Eock, on 7tli September 1857, and taken to 

 Leith ; it was 14 feet 5 inches long — see " Proceedings " of 

 the Eoyal Physical Society, i., p. 441, where it is described 

 by the late Dr M'Bain. According to Alston (Scottish 

 Mammalia, p. 18) another was caught in the Firth of Forth 

 in 1858. On 8th September 1870, an example about 18 feet 

 long, and of which the skull and baleen are preserved 

 in the Anatomical Museum of the Edinburgh University, 

 was stranded near Burntisland;^ and in September of the 

 following year (1871) one was taken at Dunbar (skull, etc., 

 in Anatomical Museum) ; while in 1872 another was 

 caught in the herring-nets off Anstruther (Alston, Scottish 

 Mammalia, p. 18). In the Anatomical Aluseum there is 

 also the skull of a young male from Elie in 1879. Still more 

 recently one (27 feet long) which I had the satisfaction 

 of seeing in the flesh, was stranded at Granton Quarry on 

 24th January 1888 (" Scotsman," 30th January), and in 



1 On 29tli July 1869, oue 13 feet loiiy was strauded near Arbroath (Scottish 

 Naturalist, i., p. 111). 



