190 



V. — MISCELLANEOUS. 



Art. XLY. — Preliminary notice of a Ziphid Whale, probably Berardius 

 Arnuxii, stranded on the 16th of December, 1868, on the sea beach, near 

 New Brighton, Canterbury. ,* By Julius TIaast, Ph.D., F.R.S. 



[Bead before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, May 5, 1869.] 



Towards the latter part of December, last year, it was stated that a whale had 

 been stranded on the sea beach, near the mouth of the Avon. Unfortunately, 

 the notice reached me too late to enable me to see the body in its fresh state, 

 and when 1 went to the sea beach the blubber had been cut off nearly a week, 

 and the animal was already in such an advanced state of putrefaction, that the 

 external appearance was greatly destroyed. Before entering into a description 

 of its affinities and peculiarities, I may be allowed to offer a few observations 

 on its capture. 



Mr. William Walker, a fisherman, living near the mouth of the Avon, 

 one mile and a half below New Brighton, observed, on the 16th of December, 

 early in the morning, that a huge animal was in the surf, making the most 

 strenuous efforts to return to deeper water. The fisherman had only a large 

 sheath knife with him, with which he stabbed it several limes, making it bleed 

 very freely. Each time when the surf reached it, it threw out a large quantity of 

 water and sand from its blowers, like a fountain ; at the same time it moved 

 its tail with such vehemence, that it threw its captor several times, when 

 he came too near it. Seeing that he could not manage the large animal by 

 himself, he returned home to fetch a rope, a larger knife, and assistance. 

 After having, with some trouble, placed the rope round the tail, and fastened it 

 securely to the stump of a tree on the beach, he inflicted with the large knife some 

 deep wounds, from which the blood ran copiously ; but the animal, notwith- 

 standing this great loss of blood, still lived for fourteen hours. The fisherman 

 also put a large stick several times into its mouth, which, to use his own 

 words, made the whale "bellow like a bull." 



A very interesting fact may be deduced from the observations of Mrs. 

 Walker, who accompanied her lrasband on the second trip. She told her 

 husband that each time he put the stick into the whale's mouth, she could see 

 several large teeth in front of its lower jaw, which, however, were not observed 

 by anybody else, and the existence of which was only revealed when the skull 

 was cleaned, when, in front of the lower jaw, two large triangular and move- 

 able teeth on each side became exposed. It thus seems that the Ziphid 

 Whales, when defending themselves from their enemies, or attacking their 

 prey, have the power to protrude these four teeth at will. Such a hypothesis 

 gains still more in probability, when we consider the nature of the principal 

 food of the animal, which, jtidging from the contents of its stomach, seems to 

 consist almost exclusively of the common sea-spider, or Octopus — a cephalopod 

 which, as in the Northern hemisphere, does not seem to be very numerous 

 along the coast. In the stomach of the whale in question there was about 

 half a bushel of the horny beaks of this cephalopod, which were nearly all of 

 the same size. It would be rather difficult for any whale to obtain possession 



* This paper was received too late for insertion in its proper place, in Section I. , 

 Natural History. — Ed. 



