ON THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE FGETAL MEMBRANES IN THE CETACEA. 469 



In the account, necessarily very imperfect, owing to the greatly injured 

 condition of the membranes, which I gave of the chorion in the Longniddry 

 whale {Balcenoptera Sibbaldii *), I described the folds and ridges of the chorion, 

 the villous character of its surface, and the presence of at least one well-defined 

 spot free from villi. Like my predecessors, I was unable to determine the 

 relations of the amnios and allantois to each other and to the chorion. In the 

 present communication I hope to be able to supply not only these, but other- 

 important blanks in our knowledge of the arrangement of the foetal membranes 

 in this interesting group of mammals. 



In the early part of February of the present year, a shoal of whales entered 

 Bressay Sound, Shetland, on the cessation of a heavy storm, which had raged 

 for many hours. The fishermen at once started in pursuit, and succeeded in 

 driving the shoal ashore in a bay to the north of Lerwick, with the exception 

 of one specimen, which sank before it reached the beach. The animals stranded 

 were eighteen in number. 



Through the great courtesy of Mr James Gatherer, collector of customs in 

 Lerwick, a gentleman well known to many naturalists as a careful and zealous 

 observer, I have not only learned the following interesting particulars respecting 

 these animals, but have also had the good fortune to receive the gravid uterus 

 of a pregnant female. Mr Gatherer writes, " The animals ranged in length from 

 17 feet to 24 feet. The Shetlanders call them the ' spotted caaing whale/ or the 

 ' fleckit whale,' or the ' pict whale,' and in one locality the ' Lupster,' a term which 

 has a Norse sound, and is possibly of Norse origin. Though ' caaing' (driving) 

 whales, yet they are not the common 'caaing' whales of the Shetlanders (Glo- 

 fnocephalus deductor). The more prominent dorsal and the shorter pectoral 

 fins, the less rounded head and muzzle, and the piebald colour, show a marked 

 difference between them and the ' caaing ' whales, so frequently and in such 

 large numbers driven ashore on the Shetland coast. I suppose it will be 

 found that they were the Grampus {Phocoena orca). The Shetlanders know 

 very little about them, although small herds have on several occasions been 

 driven ashore in different voes throughout the islands. It is seldom so many 

 or so large specimens are driven. The natives consider them far more active, 

 wary, and dangerous than the ' caaing ' whale. They tell me a few are some- 

 times seen mingled with a herd of the ' caaing' whales, on which occasions they 

 fail to drive the latter. They attribute their escape to the superior retreating 

 tactics of their more wide-awake congeners, who take the lead. 



" I laid open the stomachs of two of the animals with the hope of finding 

 some evidence of the nature of their food, but with the exception of a large 

 number of worms, and some green frothy matter, the stomachs were empty. 

 We found a fetus lying on the beach which some of the flensers had extracted 



* Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, 20th December 18G9, and Transactions for 1870. 



