232 WHALES. 



water to a much greater height. Its appearance on 

 the fishing grounds is not liked, because the common 

 whales then disappear; but whether they are driven 

 away by any act of hostility on the part of the razor- 

 back, has not been ascertained. 



The ROUND-LIPPED WHALE (balanoptera musculus) 

 resembles the former in its habits, and rivals it in size ; 

 and is distinguished by the upper lip being narrow and 

 pointed, and the under one having a semi-circular 

 margin. Instances have occurred of its being washed 

 upon the Scottish shores, in specimens nearly eighty 

 feet long. Generally, however, it is much smaller. It 

 follows the herrings pretty regularly as far as the coasts 

 of Argyleshire, and even into the Firth of Forth and 

 Loch Fyne. Individuals of this species have often been 

 known to frequent the same station for many years. 

 That which is described, by Sir Robert Sibbald, as 

 having come ashore at Abercorn, in the Firth of Forth, 

 in September 1692, had been for twenty years well 

 known to the fishermen, who called it the " hollie pike" 

 from a bullet hole that had perforated its dorsal fin. 

 That one was seventy-eight feet long, and thirty-five in 

 circumference, where thickest. The gape of its mouth 

 was very wide ; the lower jaw more than thirteen feet 

 long ; and the tongue, which was much furrowed, fifteen 

 feet and a half long, and fifteen broad. The plates of 

 baleen were three feet in length ; the eyes, thirteen feet 

 from the snout ; the breast-fins, ten feet long ; the back 

 one, three feet high ; and the extent of the lobes of the 

 tail, eighteen feet. The skin, on the belly of this spe- 

 cies, is full of folds and corrugations, as if it could be 



