Cetacea. 7117 



have the progress of Natural History at hearty and who believe that 

 our local museums ought to be a useful element in the progress of 

 Science. 



George Maw, 



On the Great Rorqual of the Indian Ocean, loith Notices of other 

 Cetah, and of the Syrenia or Marine Pachyderms. By 

 Edward Blyth, Esq., F.L.S., &c. 



The gigantic whales of the intertropical regions of the ocean have 

 been little studied. The existence of them is even ignored by Dr. 

 J. E. Gray, in his elaborate Synopsis of the known species of Cetacea, 

 published in the ' Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Erebus and 

 Terror,' published in 1846, and again in the * Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society ' for 1847 ; but there happens to be a very early 

 notice of them at the northern extremity of the Arabian Sea, in the 

 narrative of the famous voyage of Nearchus, the Commander of Alex- 

 ander's fleet which sailed from the Indus to the Persian Gulf, B.C. 

 327. Not only did the ancient navigator encounter a troop of these 

 huge animals, but it would appear that they were at that time not 

 unfrequently stranded on the coast of Mekran, where the Ichthyophagi 

 of that woodless region used their bones for building purposes, as stated 

 in the following passages. 



"The generality of the people live in cabins, small and stifling: the 

 better sort only have houses constructed with the bones of whales ; 

 for whales are frequently thrown up on the coast, and when the flesh 

 is rotted off" they take the bones, making planks and doors of such as 

 are flat, and beams or rafters of the ribs or jaw bones ; and many of 

 these monsters are found fifty yards in length. Strabo confirms this 

 report of Arrian ; and adds, that the vertebrae or socket-bones of the 

 back are formed into mortars, in which they pound their fish, and mix 

 it up into a paste, with the addition of a little meal."* 



Again, " Nearchus says that on the morning he was off* Kyiza or 

 Gutlar they were surprised by observing the sea thrown up to a great 

 height in the air, as if it were carried up by a whirlwind. The people 

 were alarmed, and inquired of their pilot what might be the cause of 

 the phenomenon ; he informed them that it proceeded from the blow- 

 ing of the whale, and that it was the practice of the creature as he 



* Vinceut's ' Voyage of Nearchus,' p. 267. 



