2 PROFESSOR STRUTHERS. 



This movement it was seen on one occasion to repeat three 

 times. The movement was described as resembling the leap of 

 a salmon, but slower. The intervals between the blowings were 

 generally about two minutes, never more than five minutes. A 

 stream like a spray fountain went up for, it seemed, 15 to 20 

 feet, at first straight up and then broke. The blow-hole part 

 was not visible above water. When it rose ordinarily the back 

 was seen first, then the dorsal fin ; in disappearing, the dorsal 

 fin was the last seen; neither the tail nor the paddles were 

 shown. 



When at last successfully harpooned it showed great strength 

 and endurance for twenty-one hours, when the line parted, but 

 it had been mortally wounded. 1 This was on New Year's 

 morning, 1884. A week afterwards the carcase was observed 

 by fishermen off Bervie, on the coast of Kincardineshire, floating 

 so high as to be visible 6 miles off. It was towed into Stone- 

 haven harbour on January 8, and beached there. 



My first observations and measurements were made as it lay 

 on its back at Stonehaven, and photographs were taken, from 

 one of which fig. 1 is taken. On the day after it was beached, 

 the carcase, the property of the fishermen who found it, was 

 exposed by public sale and purchased for a large price by Mr 

 John Woods, oil merchant, Dundee, with a view to exhibition. 



1 Some particulars of the endurance may be interesting. After the first 

 harpoon, which was thrown and went in at the shoulder, it swam quietly, rising 

 at intervals of two minutes to blow, but the vapour was reddish. After a second 

 harpoon, which was fired, took effect, it made vigorous efforts, threw the tail in 

 the air, lashed the water furiously and darted about in different directions. 

 Volumes of blood were now thrown up, colouring the surrounding water. It had 

 at first to drag two six-oared rowing boats and a steam launch, and, four or five 

 hours afterwards, a steam tug was added. With this heavy drag it swam wildly 

 about, on one occasion rising under one of the boats and lifting one end of it out 

 of the water. Hand-lances were driven 3 feet deep into it, and blood spouted 

 from the wounds. Two of the harpoon lines parted, but the steam tug and the 

 two rowing boats were dragged out to sea by the remaining line, north to near 

 Montrose, south to near the mouth of the Firth of Forth, then north again. At 

 daylight a 4-feet-long iron was fired into it, also a couple of maiiing-spikes, 

 and a number of iron bolts and nuts. About twenty-one hours after being 

 harpooned it showed signs of exhaustion, turning from side to side and lying 

 level on the water, but shortly revived and again held on; in half an hour the 

 line parted, some way south of the Bell Rock, and the whale was free. The 

 cruelty, which one cannot but recognise, of this long chase was largely owing to 

 deficiency in modern appliances of attack. 



