GREAT NORTHERN RORQUAL. 137 



storm, some of these Cetas were cast ashore, injured 

 by the tremendous sea, or dead from some accidental 

 cause. When an event of this sort takes place in a 

 populous district, it never fails to prove at least a 

 nine days' wonder, and crowds from far and near 

 are attracted to behold what no description can ever 

 adequately represent. These occurrences have some- 

 times proved eras in the science, and we shall there- 

 fore give a Hst of the principal of those we have met 

 with in the records of Cetology. 



As aheady hinted, two have been observed which 

 measured one hundred and five feet. One of these 

 was found dead, as mentioned by Scorseby, in Davis 

 Straits ( Arct. Reg. i. 481) ; and Captain Clarke 

 measured the skeleton of one near the Columbia 

 River, which extended to one hundred and five feet. 

 Allowing five or six feet for the tail, this appears to 

 be the largest animal of which we have an accurate 

 measurement (Travels to the Missouri hy Captains 

 Lewis and Clarke^ p. 422). 



?, 105 feet, as above. 



1, 101 feet, stranded on the batiks of the Humber in 1750. 



1, 95 feet, earned into Ostend in 1827. 



1, 84 feet, stranded at Boyne in Banffshire at close of 



seventeenth century, as mentioned by Sir R. Sibbald. 

 1, 83 feet, conveyed to North Berwick in 1831. Messrs. 



Knox's. 

 1, 82 feet, embayed and killed in Balta Bay, Shetland, in 



1817. 



1, 78 feet, at Abercom, as above alluded to, in 1692. 



2, 70 feet ; one on the coast of Cornwall in 1797, the other 



on west coast of Ireland in 1825. Jac. Dub. Phil. 

 Jour. i. 



VOL. VI. L 



