MAMMALS. 



185 



Order CETACEA. 

 Sub-order MYSTACOCETI. 

 Family BALiENID^. 



Balaenoptera musculus (L.). Common Rorqual. 



There is an articulated skeleton of an adult male of this species, 

 sixty-eight feet long in a straight line, from the Moray Firth, 

 in the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, which was 

 acquired by purchase in 1882. 



In 1884 a specimen of this Whale, fifty feet long, was thrown 

 ashore between Nairn and Brodie, and was sent to Aberdeen, 

 where it was dissected, and the skeleton exhibited at the meeting 

 of the British Association there in 1855 (Struthers' Account of 

 TThales, etc.). In August 1888 another specimen, over sixty feet 

 long, was brought ashore at Muirtown, Inverness, and sent south 

 for exhibition, we believe to Birmingham. It had been found 

 dead in the Moray Firth, and we saw it as it was about to be 

 put on trucks for conveyance south, but had no opportunity of 

 examining it minutely. It was either one of this species or a 

 Sibbald's Rorqual. 



Balaenoptera sibbaldii (Gray). Sibbald's Rorqual. 



Sibbald mentions one, probably of this species, which came ashore at 

 Boyne in Banffshire. It was eighty feet in length exclusive of the 

 tail (Fleming, Histm-y of British Animals, p. 32). 



Megaptera boops (L.). Hump-backed Whale. 



We gave evidence of the occurrence of this species within our present 

 area in our volume on llie Vertebrate Faujui of Sutherland and 

 Caithness. 



Sub-order ODONTOCETI. 

 Family PHYSETERID^. 

 Sub-family TIPHIRNAC. 

 Hyperoodon rostrata (Miiller). Bottlenose Whale. 



The skull of one that had been driven ashore near Brora, and now in 

 the Dunrobin Museum, was referred by Professor Sir W. Turner 

 to this species. 



