264
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
running together ; the upper sides of the hind-wings are suffused with black, in
which the row of fulvous lunate spots (somewhat enlarged) appear very distinctly.
On the under side of the fore-wings the markings are almost obliterated, while
the central yellowish band on the under side of the hind-wings has spread over
almost the whole surface, and there is a sub-marginal band of reddish-brown.
The usual silver spots on the margin are elongated in shape. Mr. Oldham's
attention was called to the butterfly amongst numbers of its fellows, by its dark
appearance when on the wing.
Mr. E. A. Fitch exhibited a fossil crab (Xanthopsis leachii, Desm.), of which
four specimens had been found in the London Clay at Maldon, during the progress
of the railway works there; also a tooth of a shark (Otodus obliquus, Agass.)
from the same. Although an immense quantity of London Clay had been
excavated, only about half-a-dozen fossils had been found. Mr. Fitch thought
it remarkable that so few fossils were found in the London Clay at Maldon, while
at Sheppey the same formation was very fossiliferous.
Mr. T. V. Holmes thought the apparent paucity of London Clay fossils at
Maldon might be explained by the fact that they were very difficult to detect in
freshly-excavated clay; at Sheppey they were often washed out of the sections
of the clay, and were therefore much more easily seen.
Mr. Walter Crouch exhibited a measured drawing of a female specimen of the
Whale, Rudolphi's Rorqual (Balaenoptera borealis), which was captured in the
River Medway, on the 30th of August last, by some Gillingham fishermen. The
position of the animal on its right side, under a small landing stage, enabled
Mr. Crouch to obtain a good view of the exterior form, and make a drawing ;
which was quite impossible in the cases of the specimens stranded in the Crouch
River, and at Tilbury. The whale measured 32 feet 2 inches in length, and was
very plump. The dorsal fin was small, ending almost in a point, and deeply
emarginated. The baleen was short, as usual in females, the longest blades
(of which he exhibited two) measuring only 121/8 inch in length. Mr. Crouch
humorously remarked that this whale had evidently intended to claim an obituary
notice as an Essex Whale in the Journal of the Essex Field Club, but was
misguided at the Nore, and took the wrong turning.1
Mr. Crouch also mentioned that the skeleton of a specimen of this whale—a
male, 36 feet long—which was taken at Orkney, in December, 1884, is now in
the possession of Prof. Struthers, of Aberdeen. Referring to the male of this
species stranded at Tilbury, in October, 1887 (vide Essex Naturalist, ii,
pp. 41-46), Mr. Crouch showed some photographs of the baleen, and mentioned
that the skeleton had been purchased by the Trustees of the Natural History
Museum at South Kensington.
Mr. Miller Christy sent for exhibition, by the President, two photographs,
accompanied by the following remarks : —
Photographing Large Wild Game.
I send herewith a couple of photographs which I hope will be thought
of some interest. As photographs merely, they cannot be said to be very
successful. Their chief interest lies in the fact that they are some of the results
of what is, I believe, the first attempt ever made to photograph large game in a
1 A full record, with measurements, by Mr. Crouch, of this specimen appears in the October
number of "The Rochester Naturalist." The paper is abstracted in the "Zoologist" for
December (vol. xii., 3rd series, p. 466), but the visit of the stranger is there erroneously credited
to the Essex Coast.—Ed.