STRANDED AT LONGNIDDRY. 209 



the Finners, yet from the length of the calf, and the well-developed state of its 

 parts, it is probable that the whale was at or about her full time. Dr Scoresby 

 considered that February and March were the months in which the Balcena 

 mysticetus gave birth to her young,* but Eschricht and Relnhardt, from obser- 

 vation made at the Danish whaling factories, think that it is between the end of 

 March and the beginning of May.t If my supposition be correct that the whale 

 was at her full time, then this Balamoptera gives birth to its young in the later 

 autumn months, and not, like the Greenland Right whale, in the spring of the year. 



This view of the period of parturition of the great Finner is strengthened 

 by evidence which I have received from another source. In the month of 

 October 1869, a large female Finner, which, from information that I have ob- 

 tained,;}; I believe to be of the same species as the Longniddry whale, was 

 found in a creek about a quarter of a mile to the south of Hamna Voe, North- 

 maven, Shetland. It was dead, and floating by its side was a dead calf, which 

 was well developed, and bore to the mother about the same proportion as the 

 Longniddry animals did to each other. Alongside the calf was a quantity of 

 membranes, which, from the statements of the fishermen, were evidently the 

 foetal membranes. The calf had obviously been born about the time of the 

 death of the mother, and had apparently reached the full period. The maternal 

 mammary glands were so charged with milk that a quantity was observed to 

 flow out through the teats. 



The capture of two of these whales in the pregnant condition within so 

 short a period in arms of the sea, lends support to the statement which has 

 more than once been made, that the Finners resort to bays and creeks for the 

 purpose of bringing forth their young. 



Skin and Blubber. — The colour of the skin has already been described ; a 

 few words may, however, be said on its structure. The epidermis readily 

 peeled off the cutis when decomposition had begun. It was distinctly laminated 

 and thicker than the human cuticle. On the belly, for example, it measured 

 |th of an inch, and on no part indeed of the surface of the trunk was it 

 seen to possess a greater thickness. In this respect it contrasts strongly with 

 the skin of the Balcena mysticetus, which in some places has the cuticle one 

 inch thick.§ The superficial layer could be peeled off as a thin horny stratum, 



* Account of the Arctic Regions. I., 470. 



+ Memoir translated for the Ray Society, p. 10. 



\ I am indebted for information regarding this whale in part to Mr J. Walker of Maryfleld 

 House, Eressay, and in part to Mr Coughtret. The latter gentleman has just returned from a visit to 

 the Shetland Isles, and when there not only collected at my request various interesting facts about this 

 animal, but also procured for me a number of its bones. 



§ Dr Knox (Catalogue of Anatomical Preparations of the "Whale, Edinburgh, 1838) points out 

 the thinness of the cuticle in the species of the great northern Rorqual which he dissected ; nowhere, 

 he says, did it exceed f^tbs of an inch. He compares it with the B. mysticetus, and shows how 

 in the one there are conjoined thin cuticle and short baleen, in the other thick cuticle and long baleen. 



VOL. XXVI. PART I. 3 I 



