SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I938 45 



the quay, facing the open fish market, and later the medieval ban- 

 queting room of King Hakon's Hall which has been restored and 

 decorated with colorful designs by the artist, Gerhard Munthe. A 

 good view of Bergen and the fjord was obtained by taking the steep 

 funicular railway to the heights above the city. An appointment was 

 made with Prof. August Brinkmann to visit the Bergen Museum 

 late that afternoon. At least 6 skeletons of as many kinds of whale- 

 bone whales, and between 50 and 60 skeletons of toothed whales, of 

 which about 40 are killer whales, are possessed by this museum. 



On the morning of June 9 we sailed from Bergen, Norway, on the 

 S. S. Vega and arrived the following morning at the Tyne Commission 

 Quay near Newcastle, England. Dr. John Beattie, conservator of the 

 Museum, Royal College of Surgeons, and Martin A. C. Hinton and 

 Dr. Francis C. Fraser, of the British Museum (Natural History), 

 made it possible for me to examine a series of skulls and skeletons of 

 porpoises in a relatively short time. To Dr. Beattie and Sir Arthur 

 Keith, I am indebted for the invitation to visit the research laboratory 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons at Downs and the home of Charles 

 Darwin. 



Finally, we visited Edinburgh on May 29, where we were the 

 recipient of many courtesies from Prof. James C. Brash of the De- 

 partment of Anatomy, University of Edinburgh. The Anatomical 

 Museum of the University of Edinburgh has a larger and more com- 

 plete collection of Cetacea frequenting Scottish waters than any other 

 institution in the British Isles. This museum contains a number of 

 historic anatomical and osteological preparations which were acquired 

 during the periods of activity of Sir Robert Sibbald, Dr. Robert 

 Knox, Sir John Struthers, Dr. William Turner, and others. The 

 exhibits and study collections of the Royal Scottish Museum in Edin- 

 burgh were shown to us by A. C. Stephen, keeper of zoology. A day 

 later we were back in London and embarked the following day on the 

 S. S. Manhattan at Southampton. 



As regards kinds of whales and number of specimens representing 

 each kind, the cetacean collections of the British Museum (Natural 

 History) at London, the University Zoological Museum at Copen- 

 hagen, and the Naturhistoriska Rijksmuseum near Stockholm are 

 unsurpassed by any of the American collections. Although these 

 museums were visited primarily for the purpose of examining skeletal 

 material of whales not represented in American collections, advantage 

 was taken of large series of some kinds of cetaceans to appraise the 

 range of individual variation in diagnostic structures. These superb 



