PREFACE. 



This descriptive Catalogue of the Marine Mammals in the 

 Anatomical Museum of the University has been compiled 

 with the view of enabling a public, wider than that which 

 can visit the Museum, to have the means of knowing the 

 extent of the collection, and the opportunities which it affords 

 for the stud}^ of the anatomy of these mammals. In the 

 number and variety of species it ranks after the British 

 Museum and the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons 

 of Eno-land, and is, I believe, third in the TTnited King-dom 

 in the number of specimens of Cetacea and Pinnipedia 

 which it contains ; whilst, in species of Cetacea frequenting 

 Scottish waters, it is larger and more complete than either 

 of those important collections. 



The Museum has acquired its examples of Cetacea mainly 

 from the proximity of Edinburgh to the Firth of Forth and 

 the North Sea, and the not infrequent opportunities occurring 

 for the examination and preservation of specimens of whales 

 stranded on the adjoining coast. Since the end of the seven- 

 teenth century, when Sir Robert Sibbald and Sir Andrew 

 Balfour formed in Edinburgh their joint Museum, naturalists 

 living in that city have availed themselves of these oppor- 

 tunities, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the 

 capture of many specimens was recorded. Early in the 

 nineteenth century Professor Robert Jameson, Dr John 

 Barclay, and Dr Robert Knox preserved in their Museums 

 the skulls and skeletons of various species which the}' had 



