HUMERUS OF A GREAT RORQUAL WHALE. 43 



end, where it is articulated to the scapula, the other two arm 

 bones, radius and ulna, being continued from the smaller end, 

 the fin, which is often more than ten feet in length, appears to 

 be used exclusively by the animal for rising in the water for 

 the purpose of respiration, the caudal fin being capable of 

 propelling the creature at the enormous speed which it is known 

 to attain. 



These whales are not unknown on our coast, I saw a baby one 

 in 1850, which was captured at Polperro on the eighth of 

 May ; the little fellow was fourteen feet long and seven feet 

 eight inches in girth, weighing just one ton, very diminutive 

 compared with the full grown animal, which attains one hundred 

 feet in length and thirty-five in circumference, weighing about 

 250 tons, and yielding 4,000 gallons of oil ; another whale was 

 washed ashore near the break- water at Falmouth, in 1863. 



In January, 1 875, another was found dead about nine miles 

 from land and towed into a cove W of Mevagissey, it was sixty 

 two feet long, thirty-six feet in girth, with a breadth of tail 

 thirteen and a half feet, pectoral fin eight and a half feet, and 

 jaws fifteen feet, the length of the cavity of the eye was fourteen 

 inches, lower jaw twelve inches longer than the upper ; this 

 whale containing 350 plates of whalebone on either side, but 

 neither of these are large enough to represent the once owner 

 of this bone. 



I have seen the skeleton of the big whale at the College of 

 Surgeons, the humerus is much smaller, as well as that of a 

 little sperm whale. 



So recently as the end of last year, a Eorqiial was stranded 

 on the island of Lewis in the west of Scotland, said to have 

 been 105 feet in length; the bones of whales are extremely 

 difficult to procure, consequent on the large amount of oil they 

 contain ; but this bone. I imagine, must have got rid of its oil 

 long ago ; I venture no opinion on its age. Professor Hunt 

 writes : " you can only ascertain its being fossil or otherwise by a 

 very careful and minute examination." The man who picked it up 

 being of an inquiring disposition, attempted to saw it, in which 

 attempt his saw had the worst of the encounter. "We have the 

 fossil vertebra of a whale iu our museum, found in the 

 Pentewan valley ; should this be of a like age I must claim for 



