Occurrence of Soiverhy's Whale in the Firth of Forth. 11 



whicli tlieir anterior ends were separated by a sliglit 

 interval. 



Colour of Shin. — The skin of the top and sides of the 

 head was glossy, and of a dark bluish-grey or dark bluish- 

 slate colour. It was mottled with numerous dark grey spots, 

 some of whicli were almost circular in form, others more 

 irregular, and which varied in their diameter from \ inch to 

 about 1 inch. The centre of each of these spots possessed 

 an almost wdiite line or point. Between the diverging 

 furrows in the sub-mandibular recrion, the colour was alight 

 grey, approaching white, whilst behind these furrows the 

 tint was a much darker grey. The margin of both the upper 

 and lower lips was mottled with dark grey, and from the 

 lower lip to the sub-mandibular region, grey was the pre- 

 vailing tint, though it varied in depth on different parts of 

 the surface. A faint wrinkling of the surface of the skin 

 immediately behind and to the side of the blowhole was 

 recognised, which was apparently due to a partial peeling off 

 of the most superficial layer of the cuticle, for the skin was 

 not wrinkled where the cuticle was still intact. 



As I did not have the opportunity of observing the skin 

 of the body behind the head, I requested the Keverend Robert 

 J. Craig to note down the colour as he had seen it, and he 

 has written to me that whilst the skin of the back was of a 

 bluish slate-colour, the belly was a light slate-colour ; that a 

 number of whitish spots were scattered over the body but 

 principally on the sides, and in some places these spots were 

 connected by narrow streaks. 



Although Sowerby, in his description, speaks of his male 

 specimen as black above, nearly white below, yet his original 

 coloured figure has almost caught the tints which I saw on 

 the head, and which the Reverend Mr Craig recognised on 

 the body generally. M. Dumortier's coloured figure of a 

 female stranded at Ostend in 1836, represents the animal 

 with a much lighter shade of blue, and in his description of 

 the specimen, he says that in the living state the entire body 

 "est du couleur brunatre plombee, a I'exception du ventre, qui 

 est blanchatre et cendre." Dr A. H. Malm describes the male 

 specimen found dead in 1881 off Vanholmen, Sweden, the 



