The White Whale. 



of tliG water in the canvas sling in which it had been hoped it would rest 

 comfortably during the cleaning of its tank, and placed upon a table for exhi- 

 bition. During the day some sixteen hundred visitors, who had come to see 

 the live whale, inspected it as it lay dead, and thej'' saw a " show" which I, 

 as a naturalist, may perhaps be thought to over-value, but it was one to 

 see which I would have travelled a long distance, if necessary. At night 

 a plaster mould of the whale was made by Mr. Searle, Mr. Buckland's 

 secretary, and Mr. Buckland himself arrived from his journey of fishery 

 inspection in Scotland in time to take part in the operation. He was 

 accompanied by Mr. H. L. Rolfe, the renowned " fish artist," who kindly 

 undertook to colour the cast gratuitously. 



"Time and tide wait for no man," it is said; neither does animal 

 decomposition ; so it was arranged that a post-mortem examination of the 

 whale should be made on the following morning. On entering the convenient 

 and well-lit workroom of the Aquarium rather before the hour fixed upon, I 

 found the deceased lying upon a tressel-supported bnard, and enveloped in a 

 melancholy shroud of white plaster. This mould having been removed — not 

 quite entire, unfortunately — Professor Flower commenced the dissection, and 

 accepted the assistance of Mr. Bond, of the Westminster Hospital, Professor 

 Garrod, Prosector to the Zoological Society, Mr. W. B. Tegetmeier, and 

 myself. Wv. Wybrow Robertson and Mr. Carr'ngton had everything in 

 readiness for the operation, and, with Mr. Farini and other gentlemen, were 

 present. The dissection necessarily occupied a considerable time— between 

 three and four hours — and the patience of some of the on-lookers was, I fear, 

 severely tested. But we had been requested to avoid injuring the skin or 

 skeleton in any way which would prevent the one being stuffed and the other 

 articulated for future exhibition; and to get at the several organs of a whale 

 without lacerating them is not an easy matter, under such conditions. To 

 hold back the tough india-rubber-like integument with its lining of blabber 

 two inches thick required some exertion of strength, and we were glad to 

 avail ourselves of about a dozen meat-hooks, by means of which, after the 

 incision was made in the abdomen, the edges of the skin were kept apart. 



The result of the examination was that the heart was healthy ; a little 

 serum was found in the pericardium, but nothing dangerous to life; the liver 

 and kidneys were free from disease. In the eesophagus was found an eel, which 

 shewed that the whale must have taken food very shortly before its death. 

 In the stomach were the partially-dissolved remains of half-a-dozen other 

 eels, on which the animal had very temperately fed ; digestion had evidently 

 gone on normally and satisfactorily, and there were no signs of the coata 

 of the stomach having been affected by the long fast that had been 

 sustained. The thickness of the blubber — from one and-a-half to two 

 inches — showed that there had not been much wasting. The exterior 

 surface of the lungs gave little indication of anything being wrong 

 with thera, but there was a lack of compressibility and elasticity under pressure 

 of the hand, and when they were cut into the cause of death was at once 

 revealed, " Plastic pneumonia " was immediately the verdict. It was 

 evident that the animal had caught a severe cold, inflammation of the lungs 

 had ensued, pus had formed in the cells and vessels, and death was the result, 

 Although appearances might have led one to regard the disease as one of 

 longer standing, Professor Garrod gave it as his decided opinion that it had 

 probably conimenood not more than a fortnight previo'asly, dating, in fact, 



