SPERM-WHALE. 



275 



Whale was cast on the shore near Hunstanton, in Norfolk ; 

 while in 1646 a "school " comprising some eight or nine indi- 

 viduals appears to have entered the Wash, one of them coming 

 ashore near Wells, and a second, towards the close of the 

 same year, at Holme. Another individual was stranded near 

 Yarmouth, Norfolk, during or previous to 1652; and an 

 ancient seat, made out of a Sperm-Whale's skull, now preserved 

 in the church of St. Nicholas in that town, which is known to 

 have been in existence in 1606, indicates that another example 

 was stranded in the same neighbourhood at a still earlier date. 

 In the year 1788, upwards of nine dead Sperm-Whales were 

 washed ashore after a strong gale, while a living one, which 

 was, doubtless, a member of the same " school," entered the 

 Thames. Better-known is the large male stranded at Holder- 

 ness, in Yorkshire, in 1825, of which the skeleton is preserved 

 at Burton-Constable ; while, four years later, another male was 

 washed ashore on the Kentish coast. According to the Rev. 

 H. A. Macpherson, a large Sperm- Whale, measuring 58 feet in 

 length, came ashore at Flimby, in Cumberland. 



Turning to Scotland, we find from Alston's " History " of the 

 Mammals of that country that from eight to ten specimens 

 have been recorded, of which the earliest was in 1689, and the 

 latest in 187 1. Among these, one ran ashore in the Firth of 

 Forth in 1769; and in May, 1829, another was stranded at 

 Oban ; while a third, of which the skeleton now ornaments the 

 Central Hall in tlie British Museum (Nat. Hist. Branch), was 

 washed on shore near Thurso, in Caithness, in July, 1863, 

 being then in a much decomposed condition. The last 

 Scottish specimen on record was one stranded in the Isle of 

 Skye, during the summer of 1871, a description of which has 

 oeen given by Sir William Turner in the "Proceedings" of the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh. 



In Thompson's " Natural History of Ireland " we find the 



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