10 SPECIMENS OF CETACEA. 



had the characters of a Megaptera, and it provides another example, 

 though smaller in size, to that already described on page 7. 



Notices of the Carse whales above described are included in Mr 

 Morris's narrative, but in addition he refers to the remains of one 

 found at Woodlaiie, Blair Drummond ; to another at West Carse, on 

 the Touch estate ; to a third in a brickfield near Falkirk, about three 

 miles from the sea ; to two whales found at Dunmore in 1846 and 

 1857 ; also to a vertebra in the neighbourhood of Grangemouth, in a 

 bed of clay 9 feet from the surface and 12 feet above high-water 

 mark, in which Mr John Burns recognised shells of Cardium, 

 Littorina, Ostrea, Buccinura, also a few of Tellina proxima and 

 Trophon scaJariforme. 



In the reprint of TJce Raised Beaches of the Forth Valley, 1901, 

 Mr Morris related the discovery in 1897 of portions of ribs of a 

 whale whilst digging a drain from the village of Causewayhead, 

 Stirling, to the river Forth. They were lying in the clay close to 

 where it joined the old coast-line of the fifty-feet raised beach. Mr 

 Morris asked me to examine the remains, and I observed that the end 

 of one rib was cleft into the cancellated tissue, and its sides were 

 formed by the outer and inner surfaces of the bone. The condition 

 was not natural, and seemed as if it had been artificially shaped 

 by the hand of man. A short distance from the ribs a part of the 

 beam, with one of the tines, of the antler of a red deer was found. 

 The surface of the beam and tine was not roughened, but smooth 

 as if from use ; and as the tine was pointed, it had the appearance 

 of having been employed as an implement for boring. 



In the process of excavating in 1903 for a new dock at Grange- 

 mouth, near the point where the river Carron debouches on the 

 estuary of the Forth, numerous bones were found about 30 feet below 

 the present surface, in the same horizon. Mr Donald D. Arbuthnott, 

 the engineer in charge, wrote : " The superjacent material consisted 

 of 5 to 6 feet of sand, a considerable thickness of mud (watery clay),. 



then a bed of gravel, on which the bones were lying, 2 to 3 feet thick, 

 composed of roundish boulders, some of considerable size, bedded in 

 clay. The gravel bed covered a large area and dipped to the Forth." 

 Specimens were preserved, and were presented through Mr Morris 

 to the Smith Institute. I have had the opportunity of examining 

 them. The specimen which is of most interest in the present 



