486 Notes from, the St. Andrews Marine Laboratory. 



individual had been noticed disporting itself in circles close 

 to the commencement of the East Rocks, and it is possible 

 that this was the specimen (5 feet 2 inches in length) cap- 

 tured in the salmon-nets. It had evidently been suckling, 

 and a small quantity of its milk was preserved for examina- 

 tion. The mammse were very prominent on capture^ pro- 

 jecting beyond the sulcus in each case, but in ten or 

 twelve hours after death they had shrunk very considerably. 

 The milk is of a dull yellowish colour and of the con- 

 sistencv of thick cream, so that it passed with difficulty 

 through the neck of a bottle. In John Hunter's " Obser- 

 vations on the Structure of Whales "*, it is stated of this 

 species that " the milk is very rich ; for in that caught near 

 Berkeley with its young one, the milk, which was tasted by 

 Mr. Jenner and Mr. Ludlow, surgeon, at Sudbury, was rich, 

 like cow's milk to which cream had been added." I have to 

 thank my colleague, Prof. Purdie, for making the subjoined 

 " Note on the Chemical Composition of the Milk of the Por- 

 poise " from a small quantity collected chiefly from the re- 

 servoirs during the dissection f. 



The specimen appeared to have been delivered at a com- 

 paratively recent period, so that the remarks in the last 

 edition of ' Bell's British Quadrupeds ' may be supplemented. 

 It is stated that a female was found pregnant towards the end 

 of the year; and again, that Mr. Jenyns found a female in 

 May with a fully-formed young one. They probably produce 

 their young chiefly in summer. In the stomach of the ex- 



* I am indebted to Prof. Flower for drawing my attention to this 

 paper. ' Works of John Hunter ' (J. F. Palmer), vol. iv. p. 892, edited 

 by Sir Richard Owen. 



t " Prof. M'lutosh having kindly placed at my disposal a specimen of 

 milk which he extracted from the mammee of a porpoise, I have made an 

 analysis of it, thinking that the results are not without interest. 



In 100 parts by weight. 



Water 41-11 



Fat 45-80 



Caseins 11'19 



Milk-sugar (?) 1-33 



Mineral salts 0-57 



100-00 

 " The most remarkable point about the composition of the milk is the 

 large percentage of fat it contains, a constituent of food which, I presume, 

 the cetacean, from its mode of life, would require in larger proportion 

 than ordinary mammals do. The milk was not of an inviting appearance, 

 being of a yellow colour and thick consistency, and possessing a 

 ^ fishy ' smell. The specific gravity of the milk, in spite of its solid 

 contents, dilFered little from that of water." 



(Vide Chemical News, 2nd Oct. 1885.) 



