154 SIR WILLIAM FLOWER CHAP. 



not a specimen of a right whale in the Museum, 

 and promised that if he could he would get one for 

 Sir William. It so happened that on his very next 

 voyage Gray's ship had the good-fortune to harpoon 

 and capture the very largest right whale which he 

 had ever seen. The " fish " was fastened to the 

 vessel by chains, the blubber stripped off, and 

 everything was in train for taking off the flesh 

 underneath and securing the skeleton, when another 

 whale was seen to blow. The crew, who had a 

 right to a share in the profits and were not 

 enthusiastic naturalists, insisted on dropping the 

 flensed body of the whale and going after the fresh 

 one, and Captain Gray, with the greatest chagrin, 

 saw the unique specimen sink to the bottom of the 

 Arctic Ocean. When he came back he was urgent 

 that Flower should ask for a sum from the Treasury 

 to buy a really good whale. "Why," he said, "you 

 have just paid ^70,000 for a Raphael ! I can tell 

 you that a right whale, just killed, and with all the 

 whalebone in his mouth, is a finer picture than 

 Raphael ever painted." When in 1895 Sir William 

 himself became " Keeper " of Zoology, one of his 

 first new departures was to cause to be executed in 

 papier mackd, according to a plan which he had long 

 entertained, a complete series of life-size models of 

 the Cetacea, but in which the skeleton is retained, 

 while the body is represented in half-section in a 

 composition exactly resembling the flesh and skin, 

 showing the animals in a section cut horizontally, 



