8 SPECIMENS OF CETACEA. 



B. sibbaldi, a whale which far exceeds the dimensions of Megaptera. 

 But two other localities in the Carse also contributed bones to the 

 old IS'atural History Museum, and amongst those sent from Blair 

 Drummond a scapula is definitely named. Granting, as its appear- 

 ance indicates, that the bone had been a part of the skeleton of a 

 Carse whale, the interest centres on this rather than on the 

 particular skeleton of which it had been a part, for it proves that 

 in prehistoric times the Hump-backed Whale had frequented the 

 great estuary of the Forth, a fact which had not previously been 

 recognised. 



Mr Milne Home stated in his work. The Estuary of the Forth, that 

 in 1859 bones of a whale were found in Christie's brickfield, Stirling, 

 but no details were given. In 1863, in the same field, called 

 Cow Park, which lies in a loop of the river Forth, about 200 yards 

 from the new bridge at Stirling, a large part of a skeleton was 

 exposed. I was told by Provost Christie that the bones were 

 imbedded in the blue clay, 13 to 14 feet below the surface of the 

 ground, and from 3 to 4 feet above the level of high water. They 

 were given to the Corporation of Stirling, who some years afterwards 

 presented them to the Anatomical Museum of the University. They 

 were much broken, but 1 have succeeded in piecing together 

 fragments of the skull and of the mandible, to permit some measure- 

 ments to be made and to partially restore their form (Catalogue, 

 p. 68). Several ribs were obtained, usually broken, one of which, 

 with its two-headed vertebral end, is described and figured, p. 69 ; 

 also a number of vertebrae, much injured, which belonged to the 

 several groups. In the Smith Institute, Stirling, is a rib 5 feet 

 long in the arc and 45 inches in the chord, marked as found in this 

 brickwork, 1863; and not unlikely some other ribs, one of which is 

 6 feet 5| inches long in the arc, 5 feet l^ inch in the chord, though 

 not marked, are from the same animal. The Catalogue of this 

 Institution also contains an entry : "Vertebrae of skeleton of a whale 

 found in Christie's brickfield, Cow Park." 



In 1864 a portion of the skeleton of a whale was exposed in a 

 brickfield at Cornton, situated between Stirling and the Bridge of 

 Allan. It was about 9 feet from the surface, in clay, in which 

 Mr Haswell determined the presence of shells of oyster, mussel, 

 cockle, and whelk, also a Trophon and a Balanus, with fragments 

 of bark, hazel nuts, and the fibres of marsh plants. The bones were 

 lying about 30 feet above the present sea-level, and the skull, in a 

 fragmentary state, along with the ear bones, was given to a museum 

 in Glasgow. The tympanic was 4| inches long, 2^ inches broad, 

 2| inches high. The periotic was fused with it, also an elongated 

 mastoid. Its characters were those of Balaenoptera, and it was 

 apparently a young B. musculus. 



In April 1877, whilst a drain was being dug at Woodyet, Meikle- 

 wood, Gargunnock, about six miles west of Stirling, some vertebrae 

 of a whale were seen in the clay subsoil. The excavations were 

 resumed in September, and a skull, more vertebrae with the plates 



