NOTES ANt> QUERIES. 307 



a long knife into it under one of the side fins, which had the result of 

 ending its troubles. The Board of Trade has been communicated with, 

 with a view to having the unwieldy carcase removed. It is now lying just 

 in front of the harbour. There is no doubt that this strange visitor, coming 

 quite unintentionally into shallow water, grounded on the Swanton Bank." 

 On reading this report I at once wrote to several friends in Wexford for 

 further particulars, with the result that Mr. E. A. Gibbon very kindly 

 secured for me a small piece of the baleen. This I forwarded to Mr. More, 

 who when he saw it at once said that it belonged to a specimen of Sibbald's 

 Rorqual. Unfortunately I was unable to visit the whale until after 

 the blubber and some of the bones had been removed, but the Wexford 

 papers kept their readers informed as to what became of it. On April 3rd 

 it was sold by auction by Mr. Plowman, Receiver of Wreck, and was knocked 

 down for £111 to Mr. William Armstrong, of Wexford, who has kindly 

 given me some interesting particulars regarding the dimensions and colour 

 at the time of his purchase. He tells me that its total length was about 

 82 feet. The colour was black above and dark slate-colour beneath, with 

 patches rather tending to grey. The upper surface of the flippers was black, 

 the under surface greenish white; their length was 10£ ft., their breadth 

 about 30 in. The dorsal fin was 11 in. high and 28 in. long; its posterior 

 edge was 16 ft. from the division of the tail. The tail measured 16 ft. 

 across its outer edge. The baleen, of which 500 blades were taken out of 

 the mouth, was uniformly black. These blades were fringed at their ends 

 and curved at their sides, and measured from 12 to 29 in. in length, and 

 from 9 to 22 in. in width at their widest part. Those which were near the 

 apex of the jaws were smaller, more numerous, and upright. All were 

 imbedded in the roof of the mouth to a depth of about 4 in. A series of 

 longitudinal folds of skin about 2 in. wide ran from head to belly, with a 

 space between each stripe of 9 in., which gives an appearance of a clinker- 

 built boat; the stripes stand out about £ in. above the spaces between. The 

 blubber was rather tough and fibrous, and not very rich ; it was from 10 

 to 4 in. thick on the back. The eye was about 4 in. in diameter. The 

 entire skeleton, with the baleen, was purchased by Dr. A. Giinther for the 

 British Museum of Natural History, and is being prepared under the super- 

 vision of Mr. E. Gerrard. The rudimentary pelvic bones were fortunately 

 secured, and were found to be 16 in. long : they appeared more like muscles 

 than bones. The state of these bones and of other parts of the whale led 

 Mr. Gerrard to think that it was, despite its immense size, still immature. 

 Although Sibbald's Rorqual has not hitherto been recorded by name from the 

 Irish coast, Mr. More thinks that no doubt the whale killed at Cork in 1844, 

 aud probably some of the other large Rorquals mentioned by Thompson 

 (Nat. Hist. Ireland, vol. iv.), belonged to this species. In addition to the 

 gentlemen whose names I have already mentioned, I have to thank 



