224 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



think that there is little doubt that this latter is the true 

 cause. The summer comes to an end, and the Rockall 

 grounds are too remote and too turbulent for the little 

 whaling steamers ; and the shape of the curve tends 

 rather to suggest that August marks the beginning, but by 

 no means the end, of the Sperm - whale's period of 

 comparative abundance in our seas. 



Further to the southward on our European coasts the 

 occurrence of the Sperm-whale tends to be earlier in the 

 year. Thus, according to Professor Brasil of Caen, a male 

 was stranded at Boulogne on 5th March 1761, and another 

 specimen (sex unknown) at St Valery, off the mouth of the 

 Somme, on 19th January 1769. As we have already said, 

 the famous shoal at Audierne arrived on 14th March 1789. 

 A large male, 62 feet long, was cast up on the Kentish 

 coast in February 1829, according to BelU 



The earlier northern or western Scottish records tally 

 with our own. For instance, a specimen was captured near 

 Oban in May 1829, another near Thurso in July 1863, and 

 another in Loch Scavaig, Skye, in July 1871 (Turner). 



On the other hand, upon the east coast of Scotland the 

 season tends to be either very late or very early in the year. 

 The Cramond specimen described by Mr J. Robertson came 

 ashore in December 1769 ; one was got at Inverness in 

 December 191 3 ; Sir John Sibbald's specimen came in at 

 Limekilns in February 1689; and one was stranded on the 

 Caithness coast in May 19 17 (Harmer). I think we may 

 take it as very likely indeed that these (and especially the 

 first three of them) were stragglers that had wandered round 

 during the winter into the North Sea, but that properly 

 belonged to the migrating herds of the preceding year. 



As to the numbers of Sperm-whales captured in the 

 earlier years of the fishery, before our official statistics begin, 

 we learn from Mr Haldane's papers that twenty-three 

 Sperms were landed between 1903 and 1907, viz., one, six, five, 

 one, and ten in these five successive years. For Ireland we 

 have only incomplete accounts, but I find records of the 

 following captures in Dr Scharff's and Mr Burfield's papers : 



1 British Quadrupeds (2nd ed.), 1874, p. 417. 



