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Part III. — Twenty-first Annual Report 



One or two of the largest of the Whiting earstones measured ten milli- 

 metres in length and a number of them nine^millimetres, but the average 

 length would be about eight millimetres. A considerable number of the 

 earstones were found scattered over the surface of the stomach mixed up 

 with the soft partly digested matter, but by far the larger number were 

 found neatly packed together in the narrow distal end of the stomach ; 

 these earstones were remarkably clean and perfect. A few of the 

 smaller of the Whiting earstones were slightly eroded by the solvent 

 action of the digestive fluids. It may be mentioned that the intestines, 

 which were of great length, contained very little matter, and no parasites 

 were in them or in the other viscera except those already referred to. 



Usually a Whiting has only two earstones, so that the two hundred and 

 forty found in the stomach and which almost certainly belonged to 

 Whitings represented one hundred and twenty fishes, and if each pair of 

 the remainder represented a fish, the earstones found in this stomach 

 would represent one hundred and forty fishes. But, while making every 

 allowance for the voracity of these cetaceans, it is hardly likely that this 



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Porpoise had taken all these fishes at a single meal ; but, judging from 

 the perfect condition of the majority of the earstones, they could not have 

 been long in the stomach. The annexed woodcut is reproduced from a 

 photograph of the earstones as arranged and mounted on a slide. 



