Volume 9 - Electric Scotland

The Annals
of
Scottish
Natural History
No. 34] 1900 [APRIL
NOTES ON THE MARINE MAMMALS OF THE
NORTH-EAST OF SCOTLAND.
By WILLIAM
TAYLOR.
GETACEA.
No whales of the genus Dahcna nor of the genus Megaptera
(except one at Wick in 1871) have been captured or stranded
in the north of Scotland for many years.
Whales of the genus Balaznoptera are not so uncommon,
but I fear one species has sometimes been mistaken for
another. By far the commonest species stranded and
captured on our coasts, of late years, is
Balcznoptera rostrata,
the Pike Whale, and not Balcenoptera niusculus, the Common
Rorqual.
I know of no recent records of Balcenoptera
sibbaldii nor Balcenoptera borcalis, unless one or both of
these species have been mistaken at times for the Common
Rorqual. A maxillary bone sent from Burghead a few
years ago was identified by Sir William Turner as belonging
to Balcenoptera sibbaldii.
BAL/ENOPTERA MUSCULUS (Common Rorqual). Several
specimens of the Common Rorqual have been stranded near
Nairn and Inverness within the past thirty years. There is
a remarkable note in the Ward law Manuscript, written in
34 B