CLASS MAMMALIA. 79 



The first record I can find of the species is in a 

 paper by Dr. J. E. Gray (Proc. Zool. See., 1864, p. 218), where 

 he mentions this rare Rorqual being found at Hope Reach, in 

 the Thames, near Gravesend, in the year 1859. The second 

 was stranded near Crixea, in the river Crouch, on the 8th 

 November, 1883. It was identified by Professor Flower and 

 described by him (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1883, p. 514 ; and Trans. 

 Essex Field Club, vol. iv., p. 3). The same example is 

 mentioned by Mr. A. H. Cocks (Zool., 1886, p. 129.) The third 

 was found dead at Tilbury, and was identified, described, 

 and drawn by Mr. Walter Crouch {Essex Nat., vol. ii., p, 41). 

 The fourth was captured in the Medway, and, having passed 

 through the Thames estuary, must have been in Essex 

 waters. We can, therefore, claim it as an Essex specimen. 

 This also was identified and described by Mr. Walter Crouch 

 in the Rochester Naturalist for 1888, where a figure and sixteen 

 measurements are given (cf. Zool., 1888, p. 466). 



Balaenoptera rostrata, Fabririus. LESSER RORQUAL. 



This is one of the best marked and most easily dis- 

 tinguished species of the family, and at the same time one of 

 the most common on our coasts. It has occurred in the 

 Thames several times. John Hunter, the famous anatomist, 

 describes in the Philosophical Transactions (1787, p. 448), 

 one caught upon the Dogger Bank, and afterwards purchased 

 by himself. Another, also recorded and figured (Zoologist, 

 1843, P- 33)> i* s now preserved in the British Museum. 



Sub-order ODONTOCETI. 



Family PHYSETERID^E. 



Genus PHYSETER, Linn. 



Physeter macrocephalus, Linn. SPERM WHALE. 

 This tropical Whale has occasionally wandered to the shores 

 of our island. It is recorded in Bell's British Quadrupeds (2nd 



