58 CETACEA. _ 



otf Bangor Bay, to wliich locality he had been probably attracted by the herring 

 fry, then swiiiiming in every direction, pursued by a powerful force of seagulls 

 of every description, some gaunets, and an immense body of puffins and other 

 divers ; flocks of which were dispersed in all directions, making unceasmg as- 

 saults upon the different shoals of fry, as they approach the surface." — N. Whig, 

 Oct. 1, 1846. 



• 

 Rorqual, Balcsnoptcra Boops, Linn, (sj).) 



Individuals of this genus JSalaiiojAera have occurred on the ocean coasts 

 of Ireland. 



In Scoresby's Arctic Regions it is stated that " three were killed on the 

 north-west coast of Ireland in the year 1762, and two in 1763, vol. i. p. 

 483. Possibly the note from the Repository of the Medico-Philosophical 

 Society given under Baliciia Mt/sticetus may refer to one of these. In 

 Smith's Cork (1750) the following note appeared, which is brought under 

 BaliEuoptera in Dr. Harvey's Fauna of Cork (1845) : — 



" Ba/cena Rotideletii ; Gesneri et aliorum; Willoughby. The Whale. This 

 fish has been cast up in different places in the West of this county ; several 

 years ago a prodigious large one, 85 feet long, was stranded at Crookhaven, the 

 jaw-bones of which are still to be seen forming the posts and arch of a gate at 

 Colonel Beecher's seat at Affadown." 



In the Freeman's Journal, May 26, 1767, the following paragraph 

 appeared : — 



"Whale 85 feet long.— May 17, was killed near Castletownsend in the 

 County of Cork a whale whose length is 85 feet ; from his eye, which is not larger 

 than the eye of an horse, to his nose is 19 feet, and the length of his jaw-bone 

 is 25 feet." * 



Dr. Jacob in the Dublin Philosophical Journal for Xov. 1825 (vol. i. p. 

 342) gives a very full and elaborate description, accompanied by figures, 

 of a female "Balcetm rostrata,'" seventy feet in length, zoologically and ana- 

 tomically examined by him in the month of April of that year. It 

 " was found floating at some distance from Innisturk, an island about ten 

 miles southward of Newport Bay, in the County of Mayo." Dr. Jacob 

 here enters fully into the question of species, and is disposed to believe 

 that Sibbald's two Avhales called Balcena Boops and B. mnscidus by Linna?us ; 

 Hunter's "5. rostrata ofFabricius ;" those described by Mr. P. Neill (Wern. 

 Mem. vol. i. p. 202), Scoresby (Arctic Ptegions, vol. i. ]). 485), and other au- 

 thors, are of the same species with that which he examined. He gives a 

 table of the relative admeasurements of the individuals described in the 

 works just named. 



The relative size of the head to the whole length indicates a Balcenop- 

 tera rather than a BaJcena 3Iysticetits. — In the Northern "Whig of 9 Sept. 

 1841, it was stated that " a Avhale of considerable size floated dead into the 

 Bay of Dunth'um on Friday last," and it is added that " this is the second 

 whale which has been drifted ashoi'e in the neighbourhood of late." 

 Some years before (1836 or 1837 ?), as I was informed by Mr. Edward 

 Benn, a large whale came in among the rocks at Ardglass, a few miles dis- 

 tant from the last-named place. It was imagined that the animal could 

 never get to sea again, and the people of the village hastily collected all 

 their destructive implements, and fastening them to ropes drove them into 



* Copied in 1839 from a book of extracts of Dr. Aquila Smith, kindly lent 

 mo for the purpose. The above dimensions, positive and relative, indicate a 

 Bal(Pnoptera. 



