412 BALJiNOPTERID^E. 



be identical with the Tschikagulk of the Alaskan Indians, 

 which visits Kamschatka and the Aleutian Islands. On 

 the western shores of America it occurs at Labrador, and 

 one taken in New York Bay is recorded by Dekay. It 

 appears regularly in Davis Straits, and on the coasts of 

 Iceland, Greenland, and Norway ; in the latter country it 

 is killed every year in the fjords near Bergen, where it is 

 called the " Summer Whale " from its being seen only at 

 that season ; and in Finland it is known as the Seigval or 

 " Cod- Whale." Further to the south it only appears as an 

 accidental straggler, specimens having been recorded to 

 have occurred in the Baltic and on the coasts of Denmark, 

 Holland, Belgium, and France.* 



In Britain the first specimen of the Lesser "Rorqual of 

 which we have authentic knowledge was a young one, 

 seventeen feet long, which was taken on the Dogger Bank 

 and described by John Hunter ; its skeleton is now pre- 

 served in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, 

 as is also that of one stranded at Cromer, in Norfolk, in 

 1860. Another, a young female under fourteen feet in 

 length, was taken in the Thames in October 1842, and is 

 now in the British Museum. The skeleton of one taken at 

 Lynn is in the Museum of the University of Cambridge, 

 and there is also a British skeleton in that of Oxford. A 

 young one of ten feet long, taken in the Firth of Forth 

 in 1834, was described by Dr. Knox, who clearly pointed 

 out its specific distinction from his " Great Northern 

 Rorqual ; " its skeleton is now in the Museum of 

 Science and Art at Edinburgh. Other examples are 

 recorded as having occurred in Shetland, Fifeshire, Lan- 

 cashire, Cornwall, and Ireland. In the Andersonian 

 Museum at Glasgow there is a Whale's skull, found in 



* It also appears to have been taken in the Mediterranean. (See footnote 

 to p. 398.) 



