178 Tate on the Porpoise. 



covered the body ; over the head it was twelve inches thick, and 

 it varied from one to four inches in thickness over the other 

 parts. A large individual, eighteen feet long, yielded fifty 

 gallons of good oil, which sold for three shillings the gallon : 

 forty gallons would be about the average produce of each por- 

 poise. The flesh beneath the blubber was dark and coarse, 

 resembling in appearance very coarse boef. 



A few of these Porpoises were females ; one must have had a 

 sucking calf, for the teats, which were small, and rather less than 

 those of a cow, on being pressed, readily yielded a thick white 

 milk. Calves were taken out of four females; one was two 

 feet long, another three feet and a half, and the largest, which 

 appeared to be nearly mature, was six feet and a half long. 

 From this difference in the size and age of the immature 

 young, it would follow that the females have no definite season 

 of calving. 



Several of these animals lived during the whole of Sunday. 

 When disturbed, they snorted through their blow-holes, or 

 bellowed through their mouths ; they struck their tail fins up 

 and down with great force, and moved their pectoral swimmers 

 as a bird does its wings ; but they were very helpless, and quite 

 incapable of altering the position of their huge unwieldy bodies. 

 Thirty hours had elapsed before any of them were cut up. No 

 food of any description was found in their stomachs ; the interval 

 between their being stranded and their death having been suffi- 

 cient to digest all the food which might be in their stomachs 

 when they came ashore. 



Doubts have been expressed whether the noise occasionally 

 made by Cetacea proceeds from the mouth or merely from the 

 blow-hole. These doubts may have arisen from the different 

 observers having noticed noises coming from one or other only 

 of these organs. I think, however, it is pretty certain that the 

 Phoccena melas at Howick Burn sent forth noises both from the 

 blow-hole and from the mouth. Mr. Dunn, architect, of Howick, 

 was present when one of these animals blew with great violence 

 through the blow-hole, to relieve itself from irritation caused by 

 a stone placed therein by an idle boy; the sound was dull, 

 somewhat like the noise made by a blast through a large bel- 

 lows. A fisherman stated to me that he observed that the cry 

 made by another animal came from the mouth ; he described it 

 as resembling "the routing of a bull." Another of these 

 Porpoises was pierced with a sword near to the pectoral swim- 

 mers, but no vital part had been reached, and the animal lay 

 unmoved ; it was afterwards stuck in the breast — a quantity of 

 blood gushed out, and the poor animal, tortured with pain, 

 roared tremendously; the rocks around appearing to quake. 



