GIANTS OF THE DEEP 3^S 



concern for the public authorities upon whose land the Whale is 

 cast. For example, a large Whale of the Rorqual species became 

 stranded at Cloughton Wyke, six miles north of the fashionable 

 watering-place of Scarborough, Yorkshire, as recently as March 

 of the present year (1910). When first discovered it was still alive, 

 but soon succumbed. It measured, I am told, fifty feet in length, 

 seven feet in depth and nine feet across. It was estimated to turn 

 the scale at not less than seventy tons, but as it was not a full- 

 grown individual it will be seen that an adult beast would measure 

 and weigh a great deal more. In September igoo another large 

 Rorqual Whale was towed into Scarborough Bay, and this specimen 

 measured seventy-three feet in . length, and within recent years 

 among other kinds which have been noted there are the Killer, 

 or Grampus, and the Beluga, or White Whale, the latter being a 

 very rare species in those waters. 



A Whale, having become stranded on some sea-shore near any 

 inhabited place, will very soon proclaim its presence in no uncertain 

 way by the stench which its decaying body will create, and hence 

 the Board of Trade accepted the offer of a Cloughton farmer to cut 

 up the carcass of the beast already referred to and bury it ten feet 

 below the surface for the sum of ;^28. Probably this farmer made 

 something out of the deal when it is borne in mind that it would, 

 when buried on his agricultural land, enrich the soil by way of 

 manure ; but a Bournemouth doctor who, in an unguarded moment, 

 once purchased a stranded giant of the deep, bitterly repented his 

 bargain, for he narrowly escaped prosecution by the sanitary 

 authorities, and was eventually much out of pocket as a result of 

 his ill-considered purchase. 



It should be stated that all the members of the order Cetacea 

 (Whales, Porpoises, and Dolphins) are carnivorous, with one single 

 exception, and that is a kind of Dolphin which inhabits the large 

 rivers of West Africa. The food of this animal is believed to be 

 vegetable matter. Then again, it is important to point out that, 

 whilst the small creatures mentioned earlier in this chapter con- 

 stitute the food of several kinds of Cetaceans, and they are unable 

 to swallow any large object, there is one species, i. e. the Killer, 

 or Grampus, which preys upon Seals, but this is the "only member 

 of the order which subsists on warm-blooded animals." It is the 

 Greenland Whale which is unable to swallow even as small a fish 

 as a herring. 



