276 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



1858. In the Museum of the Boston Society of Natural History is the imperfect cranium 

 of a small whale of this species, taken at Provincetown. It was received with the Wyman 

 Collection, of which it was 1463. In the manuscript catalogue of this collection it is entered 

 as a 'Grampus Whale' but nothing further is known of its history. From the dates of other 

 entries in the catalogue it seems that it was probably received about the year 1858. 



1867. A whale twenty-five feet long was captured about August 20th, at the mouth of 

 the Seconnet River, Rhode Island. It was one of three that "had been sporting about in the 

 river." From its small size and the fact that the three were inshore, probably feeding in the 

 estuary, these were probably the present species, but the evidence is of course inconclusive 

 (see Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, Aug. 24, 1867). 



1873. In the Museum of Comparative Zoology are pieces of the characteristic baleen 

 and other fragments of a Little Piked Whale collected at Provincetown, August 15th, 1873, 

 by Mr. J. Henry Blake. The specimens are labeled "young Finback." This is probably the 

 whale of which the measurements were published by True (1904, p. 195) as supplied him by 

 Mr. Blake. 



1878. A "small Finback Whale" is reported, "sporting in the waters off Surfside, Nan- 

 tucket, the last of October (Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, vol. 59, no. 18, Nov. 2, 1878) - 

 possibly a Little Piked Whale. It stayed in the vicinity for several days. 



1881. According to Dr. F. W. True (1904, p. 193) an imperfect skull was dredged up 

 near Pigeon Cove, Mass., in 1881, and sent to the U. S. National Museum, by Mr. Wm. H. 

 Jackson. The specimen is number 23,025 U. S. N. M. 



1882. The skull of a fairly large though not full grown specimen, is in the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology, marked "Mass. Bay, summer of 1882, J. Henry Blake." What may 

 be the spinal column and ribs of the same individual are also in the collection, unfortunately 

 without indication of locality or collector. Mr. Blake at my request has searched his journal 

 for a possible note of this specimen but without avail. 



1883. Dr. F. W. True (1904, p. 193) records "a skeleton 16 ft. 5| in. long from off Mono- 

 moy Pt. Lighthouse, Harwichport, Massachusetts, in the U. S. National Museum" (no. 20,931) 

 received in this year from the U. S. Fish Commission. Up to the year 1904 it was the only 

 skeleton of the species known to be preserved from the American side of the Atlantic. 



1887. The Nantucket Journal (vol. 9, no. 40, June 30, 1887) records the capture of a 

 "Grampus Whale," ten feet long and weighing seven or eight hundred pounds, near Smith's 

 Point, Nantucket, about the last of June. It had become entangled in a blue-fish net and 

 drowned. There can be little doubt that this refers to the Little Piked Whale, which is com- 

 monly called Grampus Whale by those fishermen who recognize it as distinct from the Finback, 



The same journal (Nantucket Journal, vol. 9, no. 42, July 21, 1887) records the capture 

 of a second "Grampus Whale" in the upper harbor near Wauwinet, Mass., about the 10th 



