38 
Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. 
SESS. 
In 18G6, a large specimen of Balamoptera rostrata was cast ashore 
on the island of Islay, the skull and scapula of which are in 
the University Museum, Cambridge.* In July 1870, a young 
female, feet long, was stranded alive at Aberdeen, and was 
dissected by Professor Struthers. The skeleton and various soft 
parts were preserved. Dr Struthers also records another female, 
16 feet long, captured at Bervie in April 1877.f 
In 1870, I received through Dr Millen Coughtrey, at that time 
one of my pupils, the two halves of the mandible of a B. rostrata, 
which had been stranded a short time previously at Hillswick, 
Shetland. In October 1872, a male Balwnoptera, said to be about 
25 feet long, was harpooned at Stornoway by Mr Mackenzie, 
manager to Mr Methuen’s fish-curing establishment. I am indebted 
to Mr Methuen for the baleen wreath of one side of the palate, 
the blades of which were yellowish white, and were fringed with 
whitish hairs. The blades in the middle of the wreath averaged 
about 8 inches in length, and about 2J inches in width at the base. 
The length of the entire wreath was 3 feet 2 inches, and 311 
transverse rows of plates were counted in it. The animal was a 
specimen of Balcenoptera rostrata. The blubber was said to be 
very thin, ranging from IJ to 3 inches. In November 1879, a 
fisherman at Stromness, Orkney, telegraphed to me that a specimen 
of “ Korqualus rostratus,” 16 feet long, had just been caught there. 
Between the years 1870 and 1888 several specimens of B. rostrata 
were captured in the Firth of Forth, portions of each of which I 
secured for the Anatomical Museum of the University. In September 
1870, a female, 18 feet long, was stranded at Sea Mills, a little to 
the west of Burntisland, and the skull and baleen were presented to 
the Museum by Mr George Prentice of Newbigging. I was able to 
inject the vessels of the baleen papillse in this animal, and I gave an 
account of my observations in my memoir on the Longniddry whale. J 
In September 1871, a specimen, said to be about 30 feet long, and 
* Mr W. Evans, Proc. Roy. Pliys. Soc., Session 1890-91, vol. xi. p. 159, 
refers to a specimen described in tlie Scottish Naturalist in July 1869, by Mr 
Robert Walker, as stranded near Arbroath: it was 13 feet long, 
t See liis Memoir on the Anatomy of Megaptera longimana, Edinburgh, 
1889, and in JoiLr. of Anat. and Rhys., vol. xxii., 1888. I am indebted to 
Dr Struthers for a note on the Bervie specimen. 
t Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xxvi. p. 216. 
