2io ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



GRAMPUS, Orca gladiator. This is a species well known to our 

 fishermen, but it is so wary as to be seldom captured or 

 stranded within the shallows. A remarkable visit of Grampuses 

 was made to the Solway at the end of July and beginning of 

 August 1863, and their capture was an almost daily event from 

 Gretna to Creetown. Some twenty-three in all were driven 

 ashore by boats, or stranded through the movements of the 

 tide. The largest was 26 feet long and the shortest 17 feet. 

 These ferocious Cetaceans had probably been attracted into the 

 Firth by the abundance of salmon, which were at the time 

 being captured in enormous quantities. Indeed it is recorded 

 in the local newspapers that some of the Grampuses vomited 

 salmon in their death-struggles. 



PILOT WHALE, Globicephalus melas. The most remarkable visit of 

 Whales to the Solway occurred in the middle of December 

 1854, when a great herd of Caa'ing Whales got stranded. 

 About 200 ran ashore betwixt the mouth of the Sark and the 

 Annan, and over 100 more on other banks, such as the 

 Blackshaw and Barnhourie. About thirty came ashore in the 

 bay at Gillfoot, in Kirkbean. Our shallow waters and intricate 

 channels seem to have entrapped almost the whole herd. 

 The average length was 20 feet, and the blubber yielded many 

 tuns of valuable oil. 



Risso's GRAMPUS, Grampus griseus. One captured at Battlehill 

 near Annan on 24th September 1892, and another on ivth 

 October following at Carsethorn. Both had become stranded 

 at ebb tide. For full particulars, see "Annals," January 1893. 



COMMON DOLPHIN, Delphinus delphis. In 1872, while fishing for 

 salmon in Balmangan Bay, the Messrs. Turner captured a 

 Cetacean that Mr. John Turner assures me was really this 

 species. 



BOTTLE-NOSED DOLPHIN, Delphinus tarsio. In November 1887 

 I found a stranded specimen lying on Mersehead Sands. A 

 few months later I was shown a skull of this species that had 

 lain at Arbigland for some years. And in July 1894 Mr. 

 Robert Major found a defunct Bottle-nose Dolphin floating on 

 the tide, and towed it into Carsethorn. Its identity was fully 

 determined. 



