WHALE. 
37 
forwarded to the Museum. Mr. T. Griffiths, C.E.. who was at the finding of the 
largest (or condylic) portion, described it as resting upon gravel, at a depth of 
ten feet, under apparently undisturbed soil ; and from what Davis and Gunn 
write as to the “ Chillesford ” and “ Forest ” beds, it was at first supposed that 
we might j)Ossibly discover in Leicestershire a formation somewhat analogous to 
those ; but on referring the matter to !Mr. J. D. Paul, F.G.S., of Leicester, we 
decided to submit the bone and its history to Professor Flower, F.K.S. This 
was accordingly done, and he answered that I was, no doubt, correct in my 
supposition as to the bones in question having been brought from a distance 
and used for posts, or similar purposes, at some remote period, and afterwards 
buried in alluvium or gradually covered over with soil, etc., but that they shewed 
no trace whatever of what might be called a fossil condition. Their introduction 
by iMan is probably the true explanation, for at Knossington I saw, in 1883, 
the rami of the mandible of a large Whale, used as an entrance archway to a 
garden, and these were of considerable antiquity. On 21st Dec., 1887, I received 
four communications relative to a “ IMammoth ” bone or “ femur ” found at New' 
Found Pool on the 17th. I accordingly visited the place where it was on 
exhibition at a small charge, and at once saw that the so-called “ femur ” of 
Elephas i^rimigenius was the condylar portion of the right ramus of a large Whale, 
and was precisely similar in condition, and probably in species, to the one found 
in 1881, with the exception that the present portion shewed the commencement 
of the large nerve aperture, which the 1881 specimen merely indicated. 
Mr. Jas. Plant, F.G.S., has, I believe, reconsidered his opinion as to this being 
the femur, or otherwise, of a Mammoth, and wishes to record the bone as the 
scapula of a Whale, and of great antiquity; but the paper upon this and other 
Cetacean specimens, which I read at a meeting of Section “E ” on 9th Dec., 1888, 
has, I hope, convinced him of his error. 
The ‘Nottingham Guardian,’ in July, 1887, published the following in- 
teresting contribution from Mr. R. Hazlewood, of Leicester, which throws some 
light upon the probable history of the Leicester specimens : — 
“ As gate-posts these enormous bones are numerous in Nottinghamshire and 
Lincolnshire. The large fin-bones of the whale were also used as signboards, and 
there is still (1873) one in existence at the sign of ‘The Royal Children,’ in 
Castle-gate, Nottingham. These are remnants of the once important whaling 
trade carried on in Hull, which took its rise in 1598, about fifty years after the 
discovery of Greenland by Sir Hugh Willoughby, and flourished till the early 
part of this century. Lentil recent times bones were of no economic value ; these 
trophies of the whaling trade were found to be applicable for no other purpose 
than gate-posts to fields and gardens. Those found in Nottinghamshire were 
purchased by the captains or men employed in navigating the Trent between 
Hull, Gainsborough, and Nottingham, and sold partly as useful substitutes for wood 
posts, but mostly as curio.sities. They have not the slightest connection with 
