SEALS AND WHALES OF THE UL.M.B.C. DISTRICT. 143 
eighteen inches in length, was brought to me at the 
Museum, on the 22nd March, 1888. It was the usual 
black colour on the tail, fins and upper parts, but a rosy 
pink on the sides and lower parts, especially on the 
abdomen. It was brought up in a shrimp-net after being 
down two hours, but lived only about ten minutes after. 
The same shrimper, John Hanmer, reported to me on the 
20th of May, 1889, that when at the North-west Lightship, 
about an hour after daylight, he observed within ten yards 
of his boat a shoal of porpoises which he estimated to 
extend fully three miles. 
Dr. Gray pointed out in 1865 (P. Z.8.) a series of short 
spiny processes on the front edge of the dorsal fin, and 
named a specimen living in the Zoological Society’s 
Garden, and after death removed to the British Museum, 
Phocena tuberculifera. It was subsequently found that 
this peculiarity was known to the ancients and also to 
Camper. Examples would appear to be not uncommon, 
for two at least have come under my observation in our 
own district, namely, one speared a quarter of a mile off 
the Rock Lighthouse, February 7th, 1867, measuring four 
feet eight and three-quarter inches in length; and another, 
four feet four inches in length, taken near the Herculaneum 
Dock, October 12th, 1881. 
Orca gladiator, Lacépede. 
At the end of March, 1876, a Cetacean, reported to have 
been twenty-five feet in length, was captured near West 
Kirby, at the mouth of the Dee, by a couple of Parkgate 
fishermen who were out in a small boat. It had evidently 
come in too far in pursuit of food, and the receding tide 
effectually prevented its return into deep water. The 
fishermen secured it by a hook and line, and were soon 
surrounded by a number of people, the place where it lay 
