BALiENOPTERA. 553 



In the "Asiatic Researches," Vol. XV, App., p. xxxiv, a large jaw-bone of a 

 Whale is recorded, but Blyth observes that it was only the basal portion of one, and 

 that when he wrote, it was much injured by long exposure to the weather out-of- 

 doors ; but it appeared, he considered, to have belonged to a rather smaller individual 

 of the same species, which he thought he might safely venture on designating 

 Balcenoptera indica. 



In the "Asiatic Researches," Vol. XVII, p. 624, and "Gleanings of Science," 

 p. 711, the vertebrae and cranium of a Whale are recorded as having been presented 

 to the Asiatic Society's Museum by G. Swinton, Esq. (1836) . These, when Blyth wrote 

 in 1859, were much damaged and mostly valueless from long exposure to all 

 weathers, and, when I took over charge of the Museum for Government, these bones 

 had fallen to pieces. The length of the Whale, Blyth mentions, was about 30 feet, 

 of which the head was about one-fourth, and he was rather more inclined to con- 

 sider this as the young of Balcenoptera indica than as another and smaller species. 

 A fine skull of the same species, with the rami of the lower jaw measuring 10 feet, 

 was obtained by the late Professor H. Walker from Arakan, and this specimen is 

 deposited in the Zoological Museum of the Medical College, Calcutta, now under my 

 charge. Blyth remarks of the first of these specimens that the bones of the lower 

 jaw were mutilated, and that only the shafts remained, but that in the Medical College 

 skull the coronoid, &c., of the lower jaw accorded with those of the 21-feet jaw, 

 which he considered as the type of Balcenoptera indica. 



The question here suggests itself, — is it not possible that these comparatively 

 small Whales are the young of the giant specimen, which measured 84 feet long, and 

 the rami of the lower jaws of which, measuring close upon 21 feet in length, are now 

 in the Indian Museum, along with other fragments ? I think I can adduce evidence 

 to prove conclusively that the two belong to distinct species, and that the skull of 

 the specimen in the Calcutta Medical College must have been that of a nearly adult 

 individual. This evidence is derived from the study of a Whale, which, owing to 

 some cause or other, found its way into the Thaybyoo Choung, which runs into the 

 Gulf of Martaban between the Sittang and Beefing rivers, and about equidistant from 

 each, and now known as the Sittang Whale. The Whale ran up this creek for more 

 than twenty miles and was stranded in a heavy squall on the 18th June 1871. It 

 then exhausted itself by its furious struggles, during which it is said to have roared 

 Mke an elephant and so loud as to be heard a very long way off ; it died the same 

 night, or on the morning of the following day. 



Having seen a short paragraph in a Calcutta newspaper relating to the strand- 

 ing of this Whale, I at once telegraphed to the Hon'ble A. Eden, then Chief Com- 

 missioner of British Burma, requesting him to be so good as to issue instructions for 

 the preservation of the skeleton, and offering to send a competent person, if necessary, 

 to assist in doing so. The Deputy Commissioner at Shwe Gyeen, Major A. G. Duff, 

 was communicated with, and he sent me a reply, that assistance would be useless, as 

 the place where the Whale had stranded was a wide tidal creek subject to the bore, 

 and that all that remained of the creature had probably long ere this been broken to 



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