NOTES AND QUERIES. 107 
MAMMALIA. 
Polecat in Cornwall.—A Polecat, or “ Fitchet-weasel,” Mustela. 
putorius, has been captured near Madron, about two miles from Penzance. 
I know the animal well, having often seen it and taken it whilst I was 
resident on the confines of Dartmoor; but during all the thirty-seven years 
that I have been resident in West Cornwall I have never until now seen 
one alive or dead, and this is the more remarkable, seeing that until the last 
ten years it has not been kept down by any regular preservation of game.— 
Tomas CornisH (Penzance). 
Common Rorqual stranded in the Severn.—On the 15th January 
a large Common Rorqual, “ Finner,” or “ Razorback,” Balenoptera mus- 
culus, Linn., was washed ashore dead at Littleton Pill, on the Severn, 
about four miles north of the New Passage. The total length of the body 
was 66 ft. Head about 14 ft. long; upper jaws straight and pointed ; lower 
jaws slightly longer than upper, broad and gaping. The dorsal line showed 
a regular and very low curve from nose to tail-fork. The pectoral fins were 
black exteriorly, lanceolate in shape, about 7 ft. long, and placed 21 ft. from 
the nose. The dorsal fin, which was prominent, erect, and compressed, was 
placed far back—viz., about 49 ft. from nose and 16ft. in front of the 
caudal fork; the fin had a broad attachment to the body and a span of 
14 ft. The colour of the body was black above, the belly being white, and 
in the fresh state considerably tinged with a deep pink. Belly (throat and 
thorax) traversed by numerous longitudinal grooves lying below and passing 
behind the pectoral fins. Baleen surrounding upper jaws a little within 
their outer margin, slate-coloured, with darker streaks outwardly and lighter 
streaks inwardly,—in short, curved triangular plates, breaking up on inner 
edges into white bristles, and rapidly diminishing, both in length and 
breadth, towards the snout. The animal was a female. After lying in the 
Pill for afew days, during which time it was visited by many thousands 
of people, the animal was sold by public auction by the agent for the 
Crown (who claimed the body as “flotsam and jetsam”), to a Bristol 
artificial manure manufacturer. The purchaser had the animal towed up 
the River Avon to his works by a steam-tug and horse-power, and having 
floated it ashore during a high-tide, has been publicly exhibiting it, prior to 
cutting up the body and preparing the skeleton.— E. Wuxson (Bristol 
Museum). 
[The right of the Crown to royal “ fish” (the whale and the sturgeon), 
when stranded or caught near the coast, is mentioned in our oldest books, 
and is expressly claimed in the statute De Prerogativa Regis (17 Edw. 2, 
ce. 11): “Also the king shall have wreck of the sea throughout the realm, 
whales and great sturgeons taken in the sea or elsewhere within the realm, 
except in certain places priveleged by the king.” Bracton tells us that 
