THE GREAT WHALE DISCOVERY

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 96, 21 January 1928, Page 22

THE GREAT WHALE DISCOVERY

MUSEUMS APPLYING FOR SPECIMENS

Museums in England and abroad are applying for specimens of the False Killer Whale which has just been found 'in Dornoch Firth and has not been seen in European waters lor sixty-six years. Mr. M. A, Hinton, of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, has collected over seventy specimens, so that a wide distribution will shortly be possible, says the “Observer.” Dr. W. T. Caiman, Keeper of Zoology at the National History Museum, corrected in an interview with a representative of the “Observer,” the impression that the species had been entirely lost. “It is true,” he said, “that only records of it as a living animal in this quarter of the globe were the shoal that entered Kiel Harbour in 1861, and the one or two specimens that were found, in the following year on the coasts of Holland, Denmark, and Sweden, but it has been seen since that time in Tasmania, in Travancore, and in a few other localities in the Southern Hemisphere.

“It was first described in 1846, by Sir Richard Owen, from the fossil skull found in the Fens of Lncolshire. There were two fossil specimens found a few years ago in the Cambrideshire Fens, but there are probably not more than thirty specimens in the museums of all the world ”

All the skeletons are being removed to the British Museum for cleaning, and it is stated that every university, and museum in Great Britain may be supplied with specimens. According to a special correspondent of ‘The Scotsman,” who describes the activities near Bonar Bridge, not a particle of the creotures is going to waste. Blubber,' flesh,' and entrails are being despatched in barrels to Leith, “and by and bv these remains will assist in the production oi various articles, from chocolates to dog biscuits”!

The carcases recovered are stated to number 120. They were scattered over a distance of about thirtv miles,' from the lighthouse at Tarbat Ness' to a point as far up the river as six .miles above the bridge at Bonar Bridge. Five fullgrown whales were actually found lying in pools within a mile or two of the famous salmon leap.on the River. Shin.