A MOOR FARM.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15160, 22 February 1922, Page 6

A MOOR FARM.

OLD WHALES FOUND. Remains of tAvo Avhalcs, Avhich must have lived 10,-000 or 12,000 years ago, have been unearthed .n a celery bed near ( Peterborough. This discovery 7, of, great interest to zoologists, Avas made by workers on Bassenholly Moor Farm, Avntes the Daily Chronicle correspondent. Dr Garrood, of Alconburyhill, Huntingdonshire, visited %> farm Avith two experts, and recovered the t ( Avo skeletons. It was clear that the Avhales were oi toothed variety, and it Avas thought they were probably the Orca Gladiator (the killer whale or grampus), which has been frequently alluded to in books on Antarctic exploration. Closer inspection,- and comparision with specimens in the museum at Cambridge, led the experts to decide, howeA 7 er, that the species Avas Crassidens...first described by Sir Richard Owen in 1846, from a skull found in the Great Fen of Lincolnshire.

At first this species, having been found in a semi-fossil state, was believed t b bo an extinct variety, but it still exists in the North Sea, though extremely rare. The Tasmanian grampus is the same animal. its length is about 14ft. The animals found at Thorney wero lying side by side under the peat, embedded in clay. On the whole, the bones aro in good condition, but, unfortunately, the skulls have been very much damaged in the work of excavation.

It is conjectured that many thousand years ago these two leviathans and per haps others —swam up a creek, when the Wash came further inland (Thorney is 18 miles inland). They were probably caught on the top of a spring tide, and wore unable to return. There is another, and a more romantio theory. Some years ago a prehistoric boat was dug up in the same field. It is suggested that its crew may have been hunting the whales. No prehistoric weapons of the hai’poon order were found, however, or any other evidence of human existence. These whales were carnivorous animals, however. They may have made a meal of their hunters