244 PROFESSOR TURNER'S ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT FINNER WHALE 



than four tons of oil were extracted from the Gravesend specimen, — so that the 

 animal possesses very little commercial value, whilst several hundred pounds 

 have been realised by the sale of the oil from the Longniddry animal. Further, 

 it is very doubtful if the Balwnoptera muscuius exceeds the length of 70 feet ; 

 the Gravesend and Pevensey specimens, already mentioned, were both adult 

 males, and yet they did not reach that length. Several specimens which have 

 been referred to this species are, it is true, stated to have been longer than 70 

 feet ; but of these, some, I believe, belong to another species, whilst it is 

 doubtful how far the others have been measured with sufficient exactness. More- 

 over, the vertebrae in B. muscuius are not so numerous, and do not apparently 

 exceed sixty-one. 



It is not necessary to compare the Longniddry whale with the Physalus 

 Duguidii, described by Mr Heddle * and Dr GRAY,t as that animal is appa- 

 rently nothing but a young specimen of the B. muscuius. 



c. In the year 1827 a fin whale, said to have been upwards of 80 feet long, 

 was found floating on the North Sea, and towed into the harbour of Ostend, 

 from which circumstance it has been customary to term it the Ostend whale. 

 Unfortunately, no satisfactory account of the dimensions and external charac- 

 ters of this animal have been recorded, and the descriptions of the skeleton are 

 in some respects imperfect. Zoologists, therefore, are by no means at one as 

 to the genus or even species to which this whale ought to be referred. Dr 

 Gray places it in his genus Sibbaldius, and calls it S. borealis ; Eschricht has 

 termed it the Balcenoptera gigas, or Pterobalwna gigas ; whilst Van Beneden 

 and Gervais, in their Osteographie, have regarded it as merely an unusually large 

 specimen of the B. muscuius. Owing to the very imperfect data at my com- 

 mand, I cannot make any exact comparison between its external form and 

 that of the Longniddry whale. I may state, however, that the length of the 

 pectoral fin is said to have been about 10 feet ; the distance from the point 

 of the snout to the dorsal fin 61 feet ; from the point of the snout to the 

 genital organs 55 feet ; that the back was black, and the belly whitish, the 

 outer surface of the pectoral fin was black, and the baleen setse also black.| 

 In these respects it more closely approaches the Longniddry whale than it does 

 the B. muscuius. It must be admitted, however, that the measurements, which 

 have been recorded by those who have described the animal, are not of a very 

 reliable character, for, whilst Van Breda states its length to be about 84 feet, 

 Dubar makes it as much as 105 feet. I shall have again to refer to the Ostend 



* Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. t Catalogue, p. 158. 



X The notices of this animal which I have read, and from which the above statements are drawn, 

 are by M. Van Breda in Cuvier's " Hist. Nat. des Cetaces," p. 328 ; by Eschricht in " Die Nordischen 

 Wallthiere," p. 176 ; by Lilljeborg in the Memoir translated for the Kay Society, p. 262; by Dr 

 Gray in his " Catalogue of Seals and Whales ;" and by Dubar in his " Osteographie de la Baleine." For 

 the opportunity of consulting Dubar' s scarce pamphlet, I am indebted to my colleague Professor 

 Kelland. 



