100 CETACEA 



did not distinguish between this and the last species, and 

 in the volume on " Whales " in the " Naturalists' Library," 

 published in 1837, records clearly referable to each are 

 brought together under the name of " Great Northern 

 Rorqual." Of the examples there mentioned, the following 

 are now generally referred to the present species, namely 

 one 46 feet long, stranded in the Firth of Forth a little to the 

 west of Burntisland on 17th November 1690, and described 

 by Sibbald (" Phalainologia," p. 29) ; another, " precisely of 

 equal size," forced ashore very near to the same spot at 

 Burntisland on 10th June 1761, and recorded by Neill 

 ("Memoirs ofWernerian Society ,"i., 212) from a MS. account 

 of it by Dr Walker ; and a male, 43 feet long, stranded near 

 Alloa, in the upper part of the estuary of the Forth, on 

 23rd October 1808, and described by Neill (op. cit., L, 201). 

 The only example since recorded seems to be the female, 

 54 feet long, which was cast ashore near Kinkell, about 

 three miles east of St Andrews, on 8th January 1848, and 

 described by the late Mr R. Walker (" Scottish Naturalist," 

 vol. i., p. 107). In connection with this occurrence, ' it is 

 worth noting that another whale, said to be of this species, 

 went ashore near Aberdeen on 18th December 1847. The 

 Razorback stranded " near Kiugask, Fife, in 1848," of which 

 Sir William Turner has some of the baleen (Alston, Scottish 

 Mammalia, p. 17), and Walker's Kinkell animal, are under- 

 stood to be one and the same. 



In June 1752 a large whale was stranded near Eyemouth 

 in Berwickshire, which was probably of this species (see 

 Scoresby's " Arctic Regions," vol. i.) ; and Professor Turner 

 informs me he has the skull of a specimen obtained at 

 Bervie, Kincardineshire, in October 1889. 



