[ N°. 146. ] REPORTS AND PAPERS. | 343 
in full length on the surface of the water. This I think very com- 
prehensible. Generally the animal is swimming with the head and 
a part of the neck raised some feet out of the water, and in this 
case the trunk and the tail must carry their weight, so that the 
trunk will be visible only a few inches above the water, and the 
tail hidden for a greater part under it. But as soon as the animal 
drops its neck and head so that only the upper part of both 
remain above the surface, their weight is carried by the water 
itself, and body and tail will become more visible, lying almost 
a fleur deau (to use Captain M’Qunan’s term). I firmly believe 
that this is also one of the few occasions that the animal swam 
with its neck contracted. In this situation it is very difficult to 
decide whether the animal has a neck or not, and so the captain’s 
assertion “the head was immediately connected with the body, 
without any indication of a neck’’ is very conceivable. From the 
hind part of the head the contracted neck gradually grows thicker 
towards the shoulders, where the animal seems to have its largest 
diameter, and from here it tapers towards the hind flappers, so 
that seen from the ship, both neck and body, being visible only 
a few feet above the surface, must have given rise to the descrip- 
tion of the captain “the body was of an oval shape’. Again the 
position was very favourable to observe the exact place where the 
tail begins, and that the animal has there its pelvis and hind 
flappers, so that, being there broader than at the tail-root, 
the captain observed “this tail I saw distinctly from its junction 
with the body to its extremity’. The colour of the head being 
described as a pale yellowish one, and that of the body and the 
tail alternately black and pale yellow, I conclude that the animal 
having swum for some time in this manner, had been partly dried 
up in the sun, while “catspaws’ washing over it again coloured 
it black here and there. As to its length I am inclined to 
believe that Mr. Webster is mistaken. I cannot admit that “the 
head was twenty feet, and six feet of the crown were above the 
water’, nor can I set much value upon his assertion that the tail 
was “fully one hundred and fifty feet in length’. I willingly admit 
that the head measured eight or nine feet, and the tail about one 
hundred feet. As the animal swam just at the surface it is clear 
to me that no mouth was visible, and I think that even the nose 
tip will only have been a few inches above the water. As no eyes 
were seen, the distance must have been rather great; but this is 
not mentioned. The body was perfectly smooth, but there may 
