ORDER 0 E CETACEA. 
63 
ticular species appears to Rave "been quite overlooked by modern 
naturalists until the year 1859, when some account of it appeared 
in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. It is, nevertheless, 
so far from being rare, indeed tbe 1 sight of a shoal of these huge 
animals is so familiar a spectacle to mariners in the Indian Ocean, 
that to this very circumstance, combined with the fact of their not 
being of much commercial value, may be attributed the extraor- 
dinary absence of such memorial. Had the appearance of a shoal 
(schule or school in nautical language) of enormous Whales in the 
Arabian Sea or Persian Gulf been a phenomenon of unusual 
occurrence, it would unquestionably have been recorded from time to 
time. The great Indian Rorqual is, indeed, very common still in the 
seas where it was observed by Hearchus and his companions, off the 
coasts of Arabia and of Mekran, Sindh, the peninsula of Cutch, and 
again further southward, off the Malabar coast. One cast up dead 
upon Amherst Islet, near Pamri Island, on the Arakan coast, in 
the Bay of Bengal, during the rainy season of 1851, measured 
84 feet in length, of which the rami of the lower jaw were 21 feet, 
or exactly one quarter of the total length. Another, stated to be 
90 feet long, and about 42 feet in circumference, was cast upon the 
Chittagong coast in 1842 (in about lat. 21° H.). It appears that 
early on the 15 th August, the attention of the inhabitants of that 
coast were attracted by something in appearance like the capsized 
hull of a large vessel, floating on the surface of the sea, and 
coming towards the mouth of the Muskal River. When it approached 
near the land, they perceived that it was a living creature, by its 
continually spouting up water into the air, and by the middle of the 
day it cast itself on the shore of Muskal Island. By the assistance 
of the flood and the surf of the sea, it was brought completely 
on shore, where, as soon as it was landed, it appeared to be in great 
distress, for it roared very loudly, similar to the roar of an Elephant. 
An excellent observer remarks that “ these Rorquals are very 
common on the Malabar coast. American ships, and occasionally 
a Swedish one, call at Cochin for stores during their cruises for them ; 
but no English whalers ever come here. One, said to be 100 feet 
long, was stranded on the coast. I saw seven of its vertebrae and’ 
ribs. Another, 90 feet long, got among the reefs of Quilon, and: 
was murdered by some' hundreds of natives, with guns,, spears,^ 
axes, &c., and was cut up and eaten (salted and dried as well as 
