CURRENT LITERATURE 59 



CURRENT LITERATURE. 



Cetacea stranded during 1918. Dr Harmer's sixth "Report 

 on Cetacea," recording those stranded on the British coasts during 

 1 9 18, contains definite records of forty-two occurrences of whales, of 

 which ten are attributable to the coasts of Scotland. We can 

 scarcely imagine, however, that this is the true proportion of 

 Scottish stranded whales, and suppose that the small number 

 compared with the many records from England and Wales, and 

 Ireland, as well as the fact that the large majority of Scottish 

 individuals were found on the east coast, points rather to lack of 

 observers and recorders than to deficiency of whales on the coasts 

 of Scotland. Of Scottish specimens three Lesser Rorquals were 

 stranded on the east coast, from the Bell Rock to Collieston, 

 Aberdeenshire, and one on the Outer Hebrides at Vatersay; one 

 Common Rorqual occurred at the Bell Rock, and an unidentified 

 Rorqual at Machrihanish in Argyll; two Pilot Whales landed on 

 Orkney and one on the Caithness coast ; but the most interesting of 

 the Scottish specimens was a White-sided Dolphin from Scalloway, 

 Shetland, the only example stranded on the British Isles during the 

 year. 



Interesting distributional results appear from Dr Harmer's 

 accumulating records. He finds, for example, that " February was 

 characterised by the appearance of White-beaked Dolphins off the 

 East Anglian Coast," while Killers were first recorded in March off 

 the north coast of Ireland, and then, having followed the summer 

 drift of the oceanic food supply from the Atlantic towards the 

 North Sea, were found a month later, in April, in the English 

 Channel. Six years' records tend to show also that while "the 

 Bottle-nosed Dolphin seems to occur most commonly off the British 

 coast during the period May to August, and especially in August, 

 after which it becomes rare," the Common Dolphin seems to 

 forsake the coasts from May to July. Further, the distributions of 

 the White-beaked and the Bottle-nosed Dolphin appear to be 

 mutually exclusive, for while the former appears almost without 

 exception in the North Sea alone, the latter practically never 

 appears there. 



The correction of an identification made in 191 7 adds a 

 Cetacean to the British list; for the Irish '' Ziphius cavirostris" turns 

 out to be really an example of MesoplodoJi mirus, described in 191 2 

 from a single specimen obtained on the east coast of the United 

 States. 



