Birds. 3107 



Occurrence of the Northern Rorqual (Balaena Boops) near Kings Lynn. — A whale 

 answering to Mr. Bell's description of the supposed young of this species, was found 

 to have stranded itself near Lynn Regis, on Sunday, February 2nd. Notwithstanding 

 its small size, it was killed with difficulty ; but the want of any weapon of a more for- 

 midable character than a common poker heated red hot, was doubtless in a great mea- 

 sure the reason. Having been made an exhibition of at Lynn, it was carried to Ely, 

 and thence was brought here, where it continued to be shown for about ten days, no 

 putrefaction having begun to take place, and no method of preservation being adopted 

 until within the last few days, when it was disembowelled and filled with salt. In every 

 respect, so far as I could ascertain, it corresponded accurately with the second figure in 

 Bell's account of this species (Brit. Quad. 521), which is a copy of a drawing by Dr. 

 Hunter of one caught on the Dogger Bank, but which that celebrated anatomist makes 

 a distinct species of, and calls B. rostrata (Phil. Trans. 1787, p. 373, pi. 20). The 

 way in which these two examples principally differ from the unquestionable B. Boops, 

 as figured by Mr. Bell, appears to be in the white band across the pectoral fins (which 

 in the Lynn specimen was of a fine ivory colour, with marbled edges, contrasting 

 strongly with the India-rubber look of the rest of the upper surface), and in the lips, 

 which are almost straight ; but from the position in which the B. Boops is lying in 

 Bell's figure, it is difficult to perceive whether the waved line of the under lip may not 

 be only a consequence of the drawing's being in perspective, and the subject of it lying 

 partly on its side. In the doubtful state of our knowledge respecting these creatures, 

 it is to be regretted that some naturalist did not see and minutely examine this speci- 

 men ; his account would have been good, and perhaps convincing evidence, either for 

 or against the distinctiveness of the " piked whale " and the " fin fish." This animal 

 was a female, and measured twenty-two feet in length ; its weight was computed to be 

 about forty tons ; the baleen was about four inches long at the muzzle, and a foot at 

 the gape. It left this place for Huntingdon, en route for Birmingham, where perhaps 

 some of your correspondents may have had the good luck to see it dissected. — Alfred 

 Newton; Magdalene College, Cambridge, March 1, 1851. 



Description of the Orpheus Warbler, (Sylvia Orphea). 

 By Edward Newman. 



I am indebted to my esteemed correspondent, Mr. Milner, for the 

 means of presenting to the readers of the ' Zoologist ' faithful repre- 

 sentations of both sexes of this very rare bird. The female is drawn 

 from Mr. Milner's specimen, the only one ever killed in this country, 

 and now unique in that gentleman's almost unrivalled collection of 

 British birds. In both figures the backs of the birds are inclined to- 

 wards the reader, in order to exhibit more clearly the white feathers 

 of their tails. The first notice of the occurrence of this bird in Bri- 

 tain, appeared on the wrapper of the * Zoologist' for September, 1851 ; 

 and a full and explicit account, which I have taken the liberty to 



