of Edinburgh, Session 1881-82. 
517 
difficult to clean, I obtained permission from my colleague, Professor 
Balfour, to bury them in the Botanic Gardens in a mixture of leaves 
and earth. They remained there until the summer of last year, 
when they were disinterred, clean and free from grease and smell. 
The examination which I have subsequently made of the skeleton 
has satisfied me that the animal was the cetacean named by zoo- 
logists Balcmoptera borealis or laticeps. 
The only specimen captured in the British seas, which has been 
referred to this species by some zoologists, is one stranded at Char- 
mouth, Dorsetshire, in 1840. From the colour of its baleen and 
the number of its vertebrae (60), it was much more likely to have 
been Balaenoptera muscidus. But as the skeleton has not been 
preserved, its identification is now rendered difficult. As no 
properly authenticated specimen of B. borealis had therefore pre- 
viously been captured in the seas of our islands, I have the satisfac- 
tion of adding this mammal to the British Fauna. 
In the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England are 
some vertebrae and other bones of this species, but nothing is known 
of their history. In the University Museum, Cambridge, .are the 
skull and one scapula of a whale cast ashore on the island of Islay, 
in 1866, which Professor Van Beneden referred at one time to this 
species.* Mr. J. W. Clark has, however, pointed outf that it is the 
skull of a very fine Balaenoptera rostrata , and Professor Flower tells 
me that he is of the same opinion. Skeletons of B. borealis are pre- 
served in the Museums at Leyden, Berlin, Bergen, Brussels, and 
Bayonne. The Leyden specimen was taken in 1 81 1, near to Moniken 
Dam, in the Zuider Zee, and the characters of the skeleton have 
been given by Professor Flower. J The Berlin specimen, figured and 
described by Rudolphi,§ was taken in 1819 on the coast of Holstein, 
near to Gromitz. Two skeletons are at Bergen, the one was de- 
scribed by Lilljeborg, |j from a young animal captured on the 
Norwegian coast; the other came from the Loffoden Islands, H and 
* Osteographie des Cetaces, p. 202. 
t See reference in The Fauna of Scotland, “ Mammalia,” by E. R. Alston, 
Glasgow, 1870. Also, in a letter to myself, in reply to a communication on 
the subject. + Proc. Zool. Soc. London, Nov. 8, 1864. 
§ Rudolphi named this animal Balcena rostrata. Abhand. der Alcad. dcr 
Wissensch. zu Berlin, 1820, 1821. 
|| Translation of Lilljeborg’s Memoir on the Scandinavian Cetacea, in publi- 
cations of Ray Society. % Osteographie des Cetaces , p. 201. 
