30 



The Hyperoodon. 



Greenland whale and other species, hanging on like so many 

 bulldogs, or ferociously tearing off great pieces of the skin and 

 blubber.* These attacks sometimes aided by Thresher Sharks. 



(7). The HYPKROODOX, or Beaked whale (Hyperoodon ros- 

 tratus), has its headquarters in the Arctic regions, where they 

 are gregarious, but usually they migrate south, in pairs, during 

 autumn, and some of these North Sea travellers, once in a way, 

 enter our estuaries. 



Such were two seen near the Nore Sands, July, 1891. At 

 ebb tide one got stranded, and was killed by the shrimpers and 

 towed to Leigh. It proved to be a male, over 25 feet long, and 

 after being exhibited for a couple of days was dissected. 



FIG. 2. 



Nore Hyperoodon towed to Leigh, July, 1891, from sketches by Dr. 

 Murie. ' A. Side aspect. B. Top view, showing obliquity of blowhole. 



Its companion, also a male of equal size, went up stream, 

 and was despatched near Barking Creek. f 



After drifting hither and thither with the tide, decomposi- 

 tion set in, and it became a public nuisance ; then the authorities 

 paid 15 to get the carcass destroyed. The Leigh fishermen 



* The foregoing series, Nos. 1-6, all beloutr to the true Dolphin group (Delpliinidte); 

 but there is yet another not included among the living whales of our District, viz. : 

 the GLOBICEPS (G. Melns) a skull of which many years ago was dredged in the bed of the 

 Thames. This, the Caaing Whale of the Orkneys, is driven ashore there in herds of 

 hundreds, and such a school visited the Forth in 1867, and a single one was got on 

 the Norfolk Coast in 1879, so that its occasional presence in the Thames Estuary in 

 olden times may be deemed certain. tNotice in " Zoologist," 1891, by W. Crouch. 



