96 CETACEA 



ORDER CETACEA. 



HUMP-BACKED WHALE. 



MEGAPTERA BOOPS (Fab.} = M. LONGIMANA (Rudolphi). 



THE true or " whale-bone " Whales mentioned in this memoir 

 can only be looked upon as casual visitors to our waters, 

 wanderers from their proper habitats in the North Atlantic 

 and Arctic Oceans. They appear to be all more or less 

 migratory, but the North Sea scarcely falls within the area 

 of their periodical movements. Except in a very few 

 instances, the occurrences cited in the following pages have 

 taken place during the autumn and winter months, September 

 being the most productive. Semi-fossil remains of large 

 Whales have been found on several occasions (see Milne 

 Home's " Estuary of the Forth," p. 25). 



With us the Hump-backed Whale is a casual visitant 

 of very rare occurrence. Of the three examples that have 

 been recognised in Scottish waters, two may be mentioned 

 here, namely, one which was cast ashore about two miles 

 north of Berwick-upon-Tweed on 19th September 1829, and 

 the famous " Tay Whale," which for five or six weeks in the 

 end of 1883 disported itself frequently in the Firth of Tay 

 opposite Dundee, to the astonishment of the good folks of 

 that town. 



The Berwick specimen, which was described and figured 

 by Dr George Johnston in the "Transactions" of the 

 Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and 

 Newcastle-on-Tyne (vol. i., p. 6), was between 35 and 36 feet 

 in length, 24 feet in girth, and had pectoral fins 9 feet long. 



