of Edinburgh, Session 1869 - 70 . 
37 
and consisted on each side of plates which projected from the 
palate into the cavity of the mouth. The plates were arranged in 
rows— 370 were counted on each side — which lay somewhat 
obliquely across the palate, extending from near the base of the 
great mesial palatal ridge to the outer edge of the palate. The 
plates diminished in size so much, that at the tip, where the two 
sets of baleen became continuous, they were merely stiff bristles* 
The blubber varied much in thickness. Mr Tait, by whom the 
whale was purchased, and to whom the author was indebted for the 
opportunity of examining the animal during the flensing operation, 
stated that he had obtained from the blubber, and from the inside 
fat, 19 tons 12 cwt. of oil ; whilst the skeleton, including the lower 
jaw, weighed 9 tons 12 cwt., and the baleen, including the gum, 
about one ton ; the weight of flesh, intestines, and other refuse, 
was estimated at about 50 tons. 
The author believed the whale to be an example of the whale 
called Steypireybr by the Icelanders, a description of which by 
Professor Reinhardt has recently appeared in the Annals of Natural 
History (Nov. 1868). The Steypireybr has been identified with 
the Baloenoptera Sibbaldii or Physalus Sibbaldii of Grray. The 
Longniddry whale differed from the Baloenoptera musculus ( Physalus 
antiquorum , Grray), or common Razor-back, in having a broader and 
more rounded beak, in the flipper being longer in proportion to the 
length of the body, in the baleen plates, fringes, and palatal mucous 
membrane, being deep black, in the plates being longer and broader, 
in the belly possessing a more silvery grey colour, and in the blubber 
being thicker, so that the animal is commercially more valuable. 
The whale was with calf, but the foetus, a male, had been dis- 
placed, and thrown out of the abdominal cavity into a space 
between the outer surface of the right ribs and the blubber. The 
displacement had probably occurred whilst she was being towed by 
the tail across the firth from Longniddry to Kirkcaldy. The 
whale may have entered the firth in order to give birth to her calf, 
as there seems reason to think that whales do frequent arms of the 
sea for that purpose. Although nothing definite seemed to be 
known of the period of gestation of the Fin whales, yet, from the 
length of the calf — amounting to nearly 20 feet, or about one 
fourth the length of the mother — he thought it was probable that 
