SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRITISH SEAS. 



87 



In the church of St. Nicholas, at Great Yarmouth, is the basal portion of 

 a skull of this animal, which has been converted into a chair : it formerly- 

 stood outside the church, and of course, as it was an object of wonder, it was 

 relegated to the powers of darkness, and christened (?) the " Devil's Seat ; " 

 it has, however, now been admitted into mother church, and stands beside 

 the north-west door under the clock. In the churchwardens' accounts for 

 1606 there is a charge of 8s. for painting this chair, which clearly proves its 

 antiquity. In a letter to Sir Thomas Browne (Wilkins' edit, 1852, editor's 

 preface to " Pseudodoxia," vol. i. p. Ixxxi.), Sir Hamon L'Estrange writes 



Fig. 17. Chair in Great Yarmouth Church, 

 formed from the basal portion of 

 the skull of the Sperm Whale. 



Fis:. 18. Back view of the same. 



that in June, 1626, a Whale, afterwards referred to by Sir T. Browne as a 

 Sperm Whale {vol. iii. p. 324), was cast upon his shore or sea-liberty, " some- 

 tyme parcel of the possessions of the Abbey of Ramsey, &c." The same 

 author, in his account of the " Fishes found in Norfolk and on the Coast," 

 says, "A Spermaceti Whale of 62 feet long [came on shore] near Wells, 

 another of the same kind twenty years before at Hunstanton [the one referred 

 to by Sir H. L'Estrange] ; and not far off, eight or nine came ashore, 

 and two had young ones after they were forsaken by the water." The Whale 

 mentioned by Sir H. L'Estrange came on shore in 1626 ; twenty years after 



