University of Hong Kong: An Informal History (2 vols)

20. Bones

Bones Whale-Bones A young 27-foot Rorqual was sighted at various times during April 1955 in Mirs Bay and lhe harbour near Yaumati and on lhe 12th, getting entangled in lhe piles of the Ming Sang Wharf, was confused enough to let himself be moored with ropes and shot in the head. His corpse was towed to the University research vessel Alisler Hardy, taken to Aberdeen, dissected by the biologists, reduced to a skeleton, and slung to the ceiling of a zoology laboratory, where Professor Brian Lofts is sometimes prevailed upon to demonstrate it to photographers. The incident was regarded with awe by superstitious local fisherfolk, who caused to be made in paper a replica of the same length, tOwed it to Junk Bay, and released. it at sea for the naked spirit of the outraged whale to hide in. Orade-Bonts Questions and answers for divination, carved on tortoise-shell or the scapula of oxen or other bones, dating from the· Shang dynasty and found at Anyang, have been studied (0 their marrows at the University by Professors Tung Tso-pin and Jao Tsung-i, whose papers and books on the matter arc authoritative. '53 The skdeton of the whale. ...