86 SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRITLSH SEAS. 



very wide geographical range, having been found in almost every sea between 

 lat. 60° north and 60° south. The attempt has been made, I think unsuccess- 

 fully, to show that the Sperm Whale of the Southern Hemisphere is distinct 

 from that of the northern ; there seems, however, no reason, at present, to doubt, 

 although, of course, it may eventually be found otherwise, that the same 

 species of Sperm Whale ranges over the whole of this vast tract of ocean. 

 North of about 40° it appears to be only a straggler, and although the Arctic 

 seas are almost always stated by authors to be its head-quarters, very few 

 well-authenticated instances of its occurrence farther north than Scotland are 

 on record ; Liiljeborg excludes it from his account of the Scandinavian 

 cetacea, but Herr Collett says that within the last 100 years, at least two 

 individuals of this species have been stranded on the Norwegian coast, and 

 that Professor Sars, during a stay in Lofifoden, received information which 

 convinced him that one was seen there in the summer of 1865. 



PVom the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century, 

 the stranding of individuals of this species on the coast of Great Britain, and, 

 indeed, of other countries in Europe from the Netherlands to the Mediter- 

 ranean, was by no means a rare occurrence ; these were generally solitary 

 males, but occasionally small "schools" were met with, as in July, 1577, in 

 the Scheldt, where three were taken ; also, at Hunstanton, in Norfolk, in 

 1646, mentioned below. 



Of its occurrence on the British coast there are numerous instances ; in all 

 cases, however, they are believed by Andrew Murray to have been stragglers, 

 " which have rounded Cape Horn (they have never been known to double the 

 Cape of Good Hope) or unpromising colonies, for they are becoming scarcer 

 and scarcer in more than their due proportion."* Eight or ten individuals of 

 this species have occurred on the coast of Scotland between the years 1689 

 and 1871 (Alston, 'Fauna of Scot.', p. 18). 



* 'Geographical Distribution of Mammalia,' by Andrew Murray, 1866, p. 211. 



