14 SPECIMENS OF CETACEA. 



Orcella, Orca, Globicephalus, Grampus, Lage7iorhynclms alhirostris and 

 actdits, Delphinus, Tursiops. 



I have consequently been enabled, as will be seen in the Catalogue, 

 to add a large number of specimens to the Museum, and I am 

 indebted to many pupils and kind friends for help in procuring them. 

 I may especially refer to the late Mr John Anderson of Hillswick, 

 Shetland, and to his three sons, two of whom were my students and 

 are now graduates of the University. In my studies on the Cetacea 

 I have derived great assistance from the memoirs and systematic 

 writings of Cuvier, Eschricht, Reinhardt, Sir Hichard Owen, J. E. 

 Gray, Van Beneden, Gervais, James Murie, Sir Wm. Flower, and 

 more recently F. W. True. 



Concurrently with my work on the Cetacea in Edinburgh, the 

 late Sir John Struthers was conducting, during his occupancy of the 

 anatomical chair in Aberdeen, important investigations into their 

 anatomy. He published a series of detailed descriptions on the limbs 

 and other parts of the Greenland Right Whale, on Balaenopte^'a 

 musculus, on a White Whale (Beluga) killed at Wick in 1884,^ on 

 Monodon, Globicephalus, and a valuable monograph on Megaptera 

 hoops. The University Museum is deeply indebted to him for a 

 number of specimens which illustrate their anatomy, reference to 

 which is made in the Catalogue. 



The establishment, during the last few years, of Avhaling stations in 

 Shetland, and at Harris in the Long Island, has led to the capture in 

 Scottish and adjoining waters, in addition to Bpt. sibhaldi and musculus, 

 of large whales which had previously been regarded as only occasional 

 visitors. I would refer especially to a number of Sperm Whales, 

 to Baixnoptera borealis, and even to Balmia biscayensis, a species 

 which for many years past was thought to be extinct, though now 

 the trend of opinion is to regard it as the northern form of Bala^na 

 australis. 



The Anatomical Museum contains examples of 22 genera and of 

 33 species of Cetacea, and of the species 21 were stranded on the coast, 

 or otherwise captured in Scottish waters. Including the soft parts, 

 the Collection consists of about five hundred specimens. 



From the dimensions of the principal building of the Museum, it has 

 been possible to suspend a number of articulated skeletons, even of the 

 largest species. In the construction of the roof provision was made 

 for the insertion of strong steel bars, from which skeletons have been 

 suspended. As is customary in collections, many of the species are 

 represented only by their skulls, on the differences in which naturalists 

 are in the habit of relying in the study of specific and generic 

 distinctions. In preparing the Catalogue I have paid special 

 attention to the characters displayed by the following regions as 



^ Sir Wm. Flower recorded (P/'or. ZooJ. Soc, 1879) the capture of a Beluga near 

 Dunrobin, Sutlierland ; and Professor Alex. Meek the capture, in June 1903, of a 

 male, 14 feet 2 inches long, at the mouth of the river Tyne [Trans. Nat. Hist. 

 Soc. Northumberland, New Series, vol. i. ). 



