2. On a Specimen of Sowerby's Whale ( Mesoplodon bidens ) captured in Shetland
Sowerby's whale is one of the rarest of the cetacea which frequent the British seas. It was first recognised as a distinct species by Mr. James Sowerby, from a specimen cast ashore in 1800 on the coast of Elgin, and named by him Physeter bidens . From that time to the present no properly authen...
| Published in: | Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press (CUP)
1882
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0370164600047623 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0370164600047623 |
| Summary: | Sowerby's whale is one of the rarest of the cetacea which frequent the British seas. It was first recognised as a distinct species by Mr. James Sowerby, from a specimen cast ashore in 1800 on the coast of Elgin, and named by him Physeter bidens . From that time to the present no properly authenticated specimen has been obtained in Scotland, although it is not unlikely that a skull in the Museum of Science and Art in this city, a description of which I gave to this Society in 1872, may have belonged to an animal captured in the Scottish seas. Two, if not three, specimens have been obtained on the Irish coast, but I know of no example of this whale having been caught in England. In my former communication to this Society, I referred to two specimens taken in France (Havre, Calvados), one at Ostend, one on the coast of Norway, and one on the coast of Sweden, and this completed the record of this animal so far as I could find a reference in zoological literature. |
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