482 On the Great Rorqual of the Indian Ocean, [No. 5. 



It is somewhat remarkable, however, that I have been unable to 

 discover a single record, from the days of Nearchus to the present 

 time, of the occurrence of great Whales in the Indian seas north 

 of the equator ; with the exceptions only of one huge fellow, 

 described to have been 90 ft. in length and 42 ft. in diameter, which 

 was stranded upon the Chittagong coast in 1812, another of 84 ft. 

 in length, which was stranded upon an islet south of Ramri and east 

 of Cheduba on the Arakan Coast in 1851 (as noticed by myself in 

 the Society's Journal, J. A. 8. XXI, 358, XXII, 414),— and to 

 these two notices may be added the statement in the Rev. F. 

 Mason's work on the Natural History of the Tenasserim Provinces, 

 that — " The Whale is found south of Mergui, and Capt. Lloyd 

 named a bay a few miles south of the parallel of 12° North, ' Whale 

 Bay,' — from the circumstance, he says, ' of its being resorted 

 to by numerous Whales, and its being the only part of the coast 

 where I have seen them.' "* 



upon the approach of the vessels the monsters ahead sunk before them, and rose 

 again astern, where they continued their blowing, without exciting any further 

 alarm. All the credit of the victory fell to the share of Nearchus, and the 

 acclamations of the people expressed their acknowledgment, both of his judgment 

 and fortitude, employed in their unexpected delivery." Ibid., p. 269. 



" The simplicity of this narrative," continues Mr. Vincent, " bespeaks its 

 truth ; the circumstances being such as would naturally occur to men who had 

 seen animals of. this magnitude for the first time : and the better knowledge our 

 navigators are possessed of, who hunt the Whale in his polar retreats, shews that 

 he is sometimes as dangerous an enemy as he appeared to the followers of Near* 

 ohus." 



* I have since obtained information of one of the largest size which was 

 stranded near Karachi some years ago, and also of two during the present year 

 (1859) in Ceylon, one near Galle, the other near Trincomali. Referring to Dr. 

 Kelaart's Prodromus Fauna Zeylonicce (1852), we find it there stated that 

 " Whales are very rarely seen. A dead one is occasionally stranded. The skele- 

 ton of one cast ashore, some twenty years since at Mount Lavinia, is still in the 

 museum at Colombo." Sir J. Emerson Tennent, in his recent work on Ceylon, 

 mentions their being frequently captured within sight of Colombo. 



Since the above was written, I have received a letter from the E-ev. H. Baker, 

 Junr., of Alipi, S. Malabar, in which that attentive observer states — "Whales are 

 very common on the coast. American ships, and occasionally a Swedish one, call 

 at Cochin for stores during their cruises for them ; but no English whalers ever 

 come here that I have heard of. One said to be 100 ft. long was stranded on 



