276 LLOYD'S NATURAL HISTORY. 



following record of Speim-Whales observed on tlie coasts of 

 that island. The first record relates to three examples taken 

 during 1691 and the five preceding years on the western coast ; 

 while some years before 1750 another was washed ashore near 

 Castlehaven. A later writer, Young, states that about 1776, 

 examples of these Whales were not unfrequently seen in the 

 bays of the coast of Donegal ; while a large specimen was 

 stranded near Dublin in 1766, from which a quantity of sper- 

 maceti was obtained. Somewhere about 1773, ancther Sperm- 

 Wiiale appears to have been taken or stranded at Youghal ; 

 and yet another about 1822 in Connemara. 



In the case of such a casual visitor to our shores it will be 

 unnecessary to say anything about habits. 



THE BOTTLE-NOSED WHALES. GENUS HYPEROODON. 



Hyperodon^ Lacepede, Hist. Nat. des Cetaces, Tabl. des 

 Ordres, p. xliv (1804). 

 Teeth reduced to a smgle pair in the front of the lower jaw, 

 which are concealed by the gum during life; skull with a tall 

 curved crest, highest in the middle, overhanging the nasal 

 aperture, and with elevated longitudinal crests in the front of the 

 latter, which in old males are greatly develoi)ed, having flat- 

 tened front surfaces, rising nearly at right angles to the beak, 

 and almost meeting in the middle line : beak short and rather 

 broad ; a falcate back-fin, placed rather far back ; aperture of 

 the nostrils (as in all the remaining members of the Ordrr) in 

 the form of a distinct transverse descent. 



THE COMMON BOTTLE-NOSE. HYPEROODON ROSTRATUS. 



Balcena rostrata, Miiller, Zool. Dan. Prodr. p. 7 (1776). 

 Delpliijtiis l>ide?itatus, et D. bufskopfy Bonnaterre, Cetolog'e, p. 

 25 (1789). 



