H 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



A WHALE IN CHANCERY. 



T N Dr. Laver's recently published work on the 

 Vertebrates of the County of Essex (noticed 

 on p. 18 of this number) reference is made to an 

 example of the rare Rudolph's rorqual (Balaenoptera 

 borealis) which was taken in the River Crouch in 

 1883. There are several points of interest about 

 the specimen that may as well be placed on record. 

 As Dr. Laver states, this individual was described 

 by Professor, now Sir William Flower, K.C.B., in 

 the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society," 1883, 

 p. 514 ; it is recorded in the " Transactions of the 

 Essex Field Club," vol. iv. p. 3, and in the " Zoo- 

 logist," 1886, p. 129. I went down from London 

 to see this whale, on hearing of its capture by 

 telegram, and from my notes gathered at the time, 

 the following particulars may be of interest to 

 some of our readers. 



This rorqual was taken by three Southend fisher- 

 men early on the morning of November 1st, 1883. 

 They were working at their avocation in the River 

 Crouch, near Burnham, when it was first observed 

 floundering in about eight feet of water. One of 

 the men threw a couple of can-hooks which lodged 

 in its head. The huge beast naturally then became 

 very violent, opening its enormous mouth and 

 making much noise. After a fight lasting about 

 five hours the men managed to slay the creature 

 with the aid of a crowbar and chisel. As the tide 

 rose the men towed it up to Cricksea Ferry, on the 

 south side of the river. There it was when I saw 

 the specimen the next day. Three days after 

 capture it was conveyed by road, with the aid of 

 a traction engine, to Southend, and there exhibited. 



On behalf of Professor Ramsay, of New South 

 Wales, who was then in England in connection 

 with the Fisheries Exhibition, I purchased this 

 whale, and he had it dissected by Messrs. Gerrard, 

 of London, and the skeleton was sent to the 

 Antipodes for the Government Museum, then in 

 Professor Ramsay's charge, at Sydney. One 

 incident connected with the skeleton was that, as 

 the animal was getting rather " high," the local 

 sanitary authorities instructed a veterinary surgeon 

 to eviscerate it. During the process he sawed off 

 a number of the ribs, near their points. These 

 tips were found to have been buried with the 

 contents of the abdominal cavity, and, disagreeable 

 as was the task, they were exhumed and placed 

 with the remainder of the bones for export. 

 Perhaps our Australian readers may be able to tell 

 us whether the skeleton is now at Sydney. 



The specimen when in the flesh was about 

 30 feet in length and 14 feet to 15 feet in girth. 

 The baleen, or whalebone, was quite short, the 

 longest shreds being under 13 inches; it was of a 

 dark slaty-brown colour, with whitish fringe. In 

 general colour the back of the animal was of a 



rich glossy black, which shaded to a brilliant 

 white on the abdomen ; the flippers were black, as 

 was the high dorsal fin. The deep serrations on 

 the underside of the body extended along about 

 two-thirds of its length from the lower lip. 



When dissected, the skull of the Burnham speci- 

 men, as measured by Sir William Flower, was 

 6 feet 2 inches in length, and the complete vertebral 

 column 22 feet 3 inches, making 28 feet 5 inches 

 from the apex of the rostrum to the end of the last 

 caudal vertebra. This would give the full length 

 in the flesh as at least 29 feet. There were about 

 300 blades of baleen each side of the mouth of this 

 specimen, but they were difficult to count on 

 account of their gradually degenerating at the 

 extremities of the series, especially in front, into 

 little more than bristles. 



The specimen from which Rudolphi described 

 the species was washed ashore or stranded on the 

 coast of Holstein in 1819, and the skeleton is now 

 at the Berlin Anatomical Museum. The records 

 in Britain of this whale having been seen by persons 

 capable of forming a scientific opinion of its specific 

 identity, are few. An adult representative at the 

 Natural History Museum was taken in the Thames 

 at Tilbury in 1887. It is apparently the rarer of 

 the four species of rorquals known to occur in the 

 North Atlantic Ocean. 



Sir William Flower thought, in 1883, that 

 Lesson's specific name, borealis, had undoubted 

 priority for this rorqual, and we are not aware 

 that it has been superseded. The synonomy of 

 the whales is a difficult and confusing subject. 



The specimen of Balaenopteva under notice 

 became celebrated from another cause. It was put 

 into Chancery, and became a claim in the High 

 Court of Justice. The claimant was Sir Henry 

 Mildmay, lord of the manor of Burnham, who, to 

 maintain certain collateral rights far more valuable 

 than a whale, claimed the "fish" under the ancient 

 charter powers inherited with the manor. It is 

 needless to say that the word " fish " as applied to 

 whales comes to us from remote times when lawyers 

 and the barons who then made the Acts of Parlia- 

 ment, neither knew nor cared for such fine points 

 of fact as the difference between mammal and fish. 

 So they grouped in the Act sturgeons and whales 

 as royal fish. It was under that Act that Sir 

 Henry obtained his judgment. The Act or custom 

 provides that to the King belongs the head of a 

 whale, and to the Queen its tail, because popular 

 opinion at that time thought the whalebone was 

 produced in the caudal appendage, which was, 

 therefore, most suited to Her Majesty. The royal 

 franchise of the manor of Burnham also extends 

 to royal birds, and the time previously when the 

 right was exercised by the lord of the manor was 

 early in the seventeenth century, when some swans 

 were claimed. John T. Carringtox. 



