124 ON A FEMALE SPECIMEN OF THE COMMON RORQUAL
bound to confess that the distribution of the species has not yet been
satisfactorily accounted for on any other supposition. Further, Mr.
French's arguments on behalf of the antiquity of P. elatior as a species
on account of its non-variability are rather weakened by facts brought
forward in my own paper proving its variability within certain limits.
I take this opportunity of stating that, since the appearance of
my paper, I have been collecting information as to the exact distribu-
tion of P. elatior in Britain, and I shall welcome any facts bearing
upon the point. Beside the very sharply-defined area which the
species occupies in Essex, as shown in my paper, it also extends
over large portions of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, and there is at
least one locality within the boundaries of Norfolk. I believe, also,
that it crosses the Essex border into Hertfordshire in the vicinity of
Stanstead Montfitchet, although this is not stated in the recently-
published "Flora of Hertfordshire." There also are localities in Bed-
fordshire I believe.
Miller Christy.]
ON A FEMALE SPECIMEN OF THE COMMON
RORQUAL (BALAENOPTERA MUSCULUS), CAP-
TURED NEAR BURNHAM.
By WALTER CROUCH, F.Z.S.
[Read February 28th, 1891.]
With Plate IV.
ALTHOUGH the Whale which was stranded in the River
Crouch, on the 12th February, belongs to a species which has
occurred more frequently on the British coast than any other of the
Baleen Whales, yet it is one worthy of record, not only as an Essex
specimen, but as exhibiting a very marked and curious asymmetry of
epidermal colour.
The animal appears to have entered the river on the early
morning flood-tide, and was first seen by Isaac Courtman, a Burnham
dredgerman, who, when proceeding to his work, found it floundering
and blowing in the shallow water by Holliwell Point, on the north
shore of the river near the oyster layings, about four miles east of
Burnham. Nearly opposite this spot on the south side, by Fowlness
Island, the specimen of Rudolphi's Rorqual was taken in November,