NOTES ON A COMMON FIN WHALE. 
209 
and furnishes important characters for the discrimination of the 
different species. 
When I first saw the whale at Littleton Pill, although it was 
then in the middle of winter, and the temperature ^as very low, 
scarcely indeed above the freezing point, decomposition had 
already set in. As a consequence of this the “ belly ” had 
become enormously distended, and the by no means ungraceful 
form of the animal had become greatly distorted. An accurate 
delineation of the whale as seen in the living state was therefore 
impossible. Fortunately several photographs were taken. The 
accompanying figure is a platinotype produced from a negative 
taken by Mr. F. A. Orchard, Photographer, Stapleton Road, 
Bristol, on the 96tb January, eleven days after the animal’s dis- 
covery. Allowing for the unavoidable distortion of the anterior 
portion of the body from the cause mentioned above, it faithfully 
represents the whale, or at any rate its latero-ventral aspect. 
The men in charge informed me that the distension of the animal 
had, to a great extent, taken place since it had been first 
observed. What the cause of death of this whale was it is im- 
possible to say. Seeing that its body was stranded on a shore at 
some distance from the nearest coast (Cornwall) ordinarily 
frequented by these animals, and that it had already begun to 
decompose, the probability is that it had been dead some little 
time, several days at least, I should say, and had subsequently 
been floated up the estuary with the tide. The animal lay in 
the Pill for about a fortnight. During this period, as also after 
reaching Bristol, it was visited by many thousand people, for 
whose accommodation special trains were run by the Midland 
Railway Company. The body was claimed by the lord of the 
manor, and also by the agent for the Crown, as “ flotsam and 
jetsam.” The latter carried the day and sold the carcase by 
public auction, when it was knocked down to Messrs. Kent and 
Cottrell, Artificial Manure Manufacturers, of Bristol, for the 
