36 
J 
Proceedings of Royal Society of EdinhurgJi. [sess. 
The Lesser Rorqual {Balcenoptera rostrata) in the Scottish 
Seas, with Observations on its Anatomy. By Professor 
Sir Wm. Turner, LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S. 
(Read February 15, 1892.) 
It is outside the scope of the present paper to enter into the 
geographical distribution generally of the Lesser Rorqual or Pike 
Whale (Balmioptera rostrata), and indeed there is no reason why I 
should do so, as it has so recently been considered by Professor Van 
Beneden, in his Histoire naturelte des Balenopteres.^ For a number 
of years it has been my custom to collect information regarding the 
Cetacea captured or stranded on the Scottish coasts, and when 
possible to obtain the animals or their skeletons. I have accumu- 
lated, therefore, a considerable body of information regarding the 
whales frequenting the Scottish seas, some of which I have already 
published. In the present communication it is my intention to 
record some facts regarding Balcenoptera rostrata, and I may say 
that when a newspaper paragraj)h relates the capture of a whale- 
bone whale, and, when measurements are given, if the length is under 
30 feet, the animal is most probably the Lesser Rorqual. 
It is difficult to fix with precision the first notice of the capture 
of this animal on the Scottish coast, as it is only within the last 
thirty or forty years that the diflferent species of Balaenoptera have 
been properly discriminated from each other. The two whalebone 
whales described by Sir Robert Sibbald in his classical treatise 
Phalainologia nova,\ were much too long to be of this species. The 
one caught near Abercorn in September 1692 was 78 feet long. 
In my memoir on the Longniddry whale, f. I identified it and Sibbald’s 
specimen as in all probability the same species, i.e., Balcenoptera 
sihhaldii. The other whale, caught at Burntisland in 1690, was 
46 feet long, and from its sharp beak was probably an immature 
specimen of Balcenoptera muscidus. For a similar reason the 
whale, 46 feet long, which Dr John Walker described as stranded 
* Brussels, 1887. + Edinburgh, 1692. 
f Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., 1870, vol. xxvi. 
