NOTES FROM NOBWAY. 27 



an Ortolan ; Wheatears plentifully. At the Store-Lerfos, near 

 Trondhjem, the Scandinavian Black-bellied Dipper (Cinclus 

 melanog aster). 



A sharp look-out on board our steamer was kept for cetaceans. 

 At the whaling station on the Jarfjord two Whales were on the 

 slips, and had been partly flensed and cut up. One was the 

 Common Rorqual {Balcenoptera musculus) ; the other, so far as I 

 could make out from its long flippers, a Humpback (Megaptera 

 longimana). These flippers are wholly white in living or recently 

 captured specimens. On leaving the Jarfjord we were fortunate 

 in seeing a Common Rorqual brought in towed alongside one of 

 the steam whalers. This was about sixty feet in length, and 

 some good photographs were taken of the animal alongside, our 

 own steamer and the whaler stopping for that purpose. In the 

 fjord near Christianssund N. were two species of Dolphin; one of 

 these was dark coloured above and below, and probably referable 

 to D. tursio ; the other a beautiful black and white one. Two 

 of these latter raced along the side of the ship ; they reminded 

 me of a pair of greyhounds in full stretch, now one and now the 

 other making a sudden rush ahead, or diverging from its course 

 to seize some surface-swimming fish (probably mackerel) dis- 

 turbed by the passage of the steamer. These Dolphins were 

 close to the surface in absolutely clear water ; from their mark- 

 ings I have no doubt they were D. acutus and not albirostris. 



On the return voyage to Newcastle, when about fifty miles 

 from the Tyne, we passed through a fleet of Dutch boats, fishing 

 with their masts down. A very large Whale was rolling slowly 

 along, and showing little but his back. Species not determined. 



One feature of these northern seas is the enormous abundance 

 of marine invertebrata — Scyphomedusce. They may be seen sus- 

 pended at all depths in the marvellous transparency of the water. 

 The commonest form has four circular purple rings, like a 

 double eye-glass, at the summit of the disc ; others are like 

 parasols — scalped heads, from the colour, somebody called them 

 — with sheaves of long semitransparent tentacles streaming in 

 their wake like the tail of a comet. Progression is a system 

 of contraction and expansion. When the ship was stationary in 

 the harbour, or from some wooden pier, we used to watch them, 

 yawning and gaping their way along in a dilettante manner, much 



