CHAP, v.] SEVERN AND WYE 39 



locality of what may be called our own capture, that " The 

 first account which we have of its appearance on our own 

 shores is that of John Hunter/' and it was taken with its 

 young one " on the sea coast near Berkeley " ; that is about 

 two or three miles higher up the left bank of the Severn 

 than the Aust Cliffs. Another specimen was found in 

 the river Dart in Devonshire, and, it was stated, "was killed 

 with difficulty, the poor animal having suffered for four 

 hours the attacks of eight men armed with spears and two 

 guns, and assisted by dogs. When wounded it made a 

 noise like the bellowing of a bull." 1 In the case of the 

 Old Passage specimen the poor creature was also most 

 barbarously treated, chiefly by being attacked by the 

 running of hay forks, pitch forks, and the like, into its body, 

 and I remember a good deal of chopping with hatchets 

 or axes, but it was quite quiet and, it was to be hoped, was 

 past feeling pain. Immense popular interest, of course, was 

 excited as to the precise nature of the unusual " take," as to 

 whether it was a Leviathan, or possibly the kind of fish 

 that swallowed Jonah but the affair ended by the creature 

 being shipped off to Bristol to be turned into a little money 

 for the boatmen who secured it, and no other cetacean was 

 taken during the remainder of the years in which Sedbury 

 was my home. 



The most observable of the seaweeds, which grew on the 

 rocks or large stones, more or less in the muddy salt water 

 between tide levels at the mouth of the Severn, were of the 

 genus Fticus, which at one time was much used in the 

 making of kelp. The ornamental kinds always appeared to 

 me to be unaccountably absent. They were not to be 

 expected to make this place their habitat, but, still, their 

 almost total absence in the masses of drift matter left by the 

 retiring tide struck me as curious. In my most successful 

 searches I do not remember ever being fortunate enough to 

 secure even a fragment of the lovely Oak-leaf, Delesseria, 

 with its bright, rosy-veined leaves from as much as 4 inches 

 to 8 inches in length placed along their cylindrical stem, or 

 the Peacock seaweed, Padina pavonea, with its concentric 

 markings. Of Iceland Moss there might be a battered 

 morsel. The general composition of the driftage was 

 composed of little except what might be grown in the 

 neighbourhood, mixed with sugar cane or packing material 



1 See quotations in Hist, of British Quadrupeds, including the Cetacea, 

 by Thomas Bell, F.R.S., &c. pp. 469-472. 



