OCR Text |
Show 1879.] PROF. FLOWER ON THE SKULL OF A BELUGA. 667 Prof. Flower exhibited the skull of a Beluga, or White Whale, Delphinapterus leucas (Pallas), which has been presented by His Grace the Duke of Sutherland to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and made the following remarks:- As this cetacean has been but rarely observed in the British seas, and as there is but one known instance in which a specimen has been taken alive and authenticated by preservation of its remains1, the circumstances relating to its capture, as described in a letter from the Rev. Dr. Joass, of Golspie, may be worth recording:- "It was found close to the salmon-nets near the Little Ferry, about three miles to the westward of Dunrobin, Sutherlandshire, at ebb tide, on Monday, June 9th, 1879, caught by the tail between two short posts to which a stay-rope of the stake-net was fastened (see fig. 1) ; and a Salmon of 18 lb. weight, which was supposed to have been the object of its pursuit, was found in front of it. It measured 12 feet 6 inches in length. The tail was 34 inches across, and the flippers 17 inches long. It was a female, and had 20 teeth in the Fig. 1. The mode in which the Beluga was caught. From a sketch by the Bev. Dr. Joass. upper jaw and 16 in the lower. The stomach contained a few flakes of fish, which from size and colour might have been Salmon. It was found, on cleaning the skeleton, that in its efforts to escape the Whale had broken its back between the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae; and it had a recent granulating wound on the frontal pad, extending about five inches transversely, and about three incbes broad, the lower edge being on a line between the eyes. I have heard since that two days before its capture it was seen off Cracaig by Brora fishermen who were lying at their lines. At first they thought it a human body; as it approached against the ebb, they took it for a ghost! At still closer quarters they saw that it was a living beast of some kind bearing down upon them, and plied it with stones (their spare sinkers), hoping that it would turn aside and not oblige them to leave their ground; but it hardly heeded them, and so they 1 Bell's British Quadrupeds, 2nd edit, p.440. |