Celacea. 7119 



They are, nevertheless, so far from being rare, indeed the sight of a 

 shoal of these huge animals is so familiar a spectacle to mariners, that 

 to this very circumstance — combined with the fact of their being of 

 little commercial value — may be attributed the extraordinary absence 

 of such memorial. Had the appearance of a shoal of enormous whales 

 in the Arabian Sea or Bay of Bengal been a phenomenon of unusual 

 occurrence, it would unquestionably have been recorded from time to 

 time. 



From reliable information which I have obtained I am enabled to 

 state with confidence that they are still occasionally observed within 

 the Persian Gulf, rarely however in shoals, but generally one or two 

 stragglers at a time. It may be concluded, therefore, that a shoal of them 

 may yet be now and then seen off the coast of Mekran, at the head of 

 the Arabian Sea, a little further to the East, where Nearchus and his 

 fleet encountered them ; and that a carcass may still occasionally be 

 stranded on the same rarely-visited coast, and the bones even yet be 

 applied to like purposes by the scanty fish-eating population of that 

 inhospitable woodless region. 



It appears, from much inquiry I have made on the subject of com- 

 petent observers that only one species of whale is met with in these 

 seas, and all accounts agree that it is a " finner," " fin-back," " razor- 

 back," " pike-whale " or rorqual [Balcenoptera) of enormous size. I 

 cannot learn that a "hunch-back" {Megaptera) has been observed north 

 of the Equator. An observant nautical friend writes word that "the whale 

 most generally seen in and about the Bay of Bengal, often in numerous 



rarely seen. A dead one is occasioually stranded. The skeleton of one cast asLore, 

 some twenty years since, at Mount Lavinia, is still in the Museum at Colombo." Sir 

 J. Emerson Tennent, in his recent work on Ceylon, mentions their being frequently 

 captured within sijj;ht of Colombo. Since the above was written, I have received a 

 letter from the Eev. H. Baker, jun., of Alipi, St. Malabar, in which that attentive 

 observer stales, " Whales are very common on the Coast. American ships, and occa- 

 sionally a Swedish one, call at Cochin for stores during their cruises for them ; but 

 no English whalers ever come here that I have heard of. One said to be 100 feet 

 long was stranded on the coast. I saw some of the vtrtebrjB and ribs about three 

 years ago. Last year another, 90 feet long, got among the reefs at Quilon, and was 

 murdered by some hundreds of natives with guns, spears, axes, &o., and was 

 cut up and eaten (salted and dried as well as fresh). The Roman Catholic fishermen 

 of the coast pronounced it ' first chop beef.' The Maldives and Seychelles are said to 

 be the head-quarters of the whalers who seek for these whales. I am sorry I never 

 noticed the jaw-bones sufiicienily, for I saw them on the beach. We have the dugong 

 on the coast, and porpoises come up the back waters in March when they are salt, but 

 the susu I do not think is known here." 



