58 
CETACEA. 
off Bangor Bay, to which locality he had been probably attracted by the herring 
fry, then swimming in every direction, pursued by a powerful force of seagulls 
of every description, some gannets, and an immense body of puffins and other 
divers ; flocks of which were dispersed in all directions, making unceasing as- 
saults upon the different shoals of fry, as they approach the surface.” — N. Whig, 
Oct. 1, 1846. 
Rorqual, Balcenoptera Boops, Linn, (sp.) 
Individuals of this genus Balcenoptera have occurred on the ocean coasts 
of Ireland. 
In Scoresby’s Arctic Regions it is stated that “ three were killed on the 
north-west coast of Ireland in the year 1762, and two in 1763, vol. i. p. 
483. Possibly the note from the Repository of the Medico-Philosophical 
Society given under Balcena Mysticetus may refer to one of these. In 
Smith’s Cork (1750) the following note appeared, which is brought under 
Balsenoptera in Dr. Harvey’s Fauna of Cork (1845) : — 
“ Balcena Rondeletii ; Gesneri et aliorum; Willoughby. The Whale. This 
fish has been cast up in different places in the West of this county; several 
years ago a prodigious large one, 85 feet long, was stranded at Crookhaven, the 
jaw-bones of which are still to be seen forming the posts and arch of a gate at 
Colonel Beecher’s seat at Affadown.” 
In the Freeman’s Journal, May 26, 1767, the following paragraph 
appeared : — 
“Whale 85 feet long.— May 17, was killed near Castletownsend in the 
County of Cork a whale whose length is 85 feet ; from his eye, which is not larger 
than the eye of an horse, to his nose is 19 feet, and the length of his jaw-bone 
is 25 feet.” * 
Dr. Jacob in the Dublin Philosophical Journal for Nov. 1825 (vol. i. p. 
342) gives a very full and elaborate description, accompanied by figures, 
of a female “ Balcena rostrata,” seventy feet in length, zoologically and ana- 
tomically examined by him in the month of April of that year. It 
“ was found floating at some distance from Innisturk, an island about ten 
miles southward of Newport Bay, in the County of Mayo.” Dr. Jacob 
here enters fully into the question of species, and is disposed to believe 
that Sibbald’s two whales called Balcena Boops and B. musculus by Linneeus ; 
Hunter’s “ B. rostrata ofFabricius those described by Mr. P. Neill (Wern. 
Mem. vol. i. p. 202), Scoresby (Arctic Regions, vol. i. p. 485), and other au- 
thors, are of the same species with that which he examined. He gives a 
table of the relative admeasurements of the individuals described in the 
works just named. 
The relative size of the head to the whole length indicates a Balcenop- 
tera rather than a Balcena Mysticetus. — In the Northern Whig of 9 Sept. 
1841, it was stated that “ a whale of considerable size floated dead into the 
Bay of Dundrum on Friday last,” and it is added that “ this is the second 
whale which has been drifted ashore in the neighbourhood of late.” 
Some years before (1836 or 1837 P), as I was informed by Mr. Edward 
Benn, a large whale came in among the rocks at Ardglass, a few miles dis- 
tant from the last-named place. It was imagined that the animal could 
never get to sea again, and the people of the village hastily collected all 
their destructive implements, and fastening them to ropes drove them into 
* Copied in 1839 from a book of extracts of Dr. Aquila Smith, kindly lent 
me for the purpose. The above dimensions, positive and relative, indicate a 
Balcenoptera. 
