232 DR. J. E. GRAY ON BRITISH CETACEA. [May 24, 
The Spermaceti Whale frequently comes ashore in Orkney; one 
was caught at Hoy, 50 feet long (‘‘ Lowe,” Flem. B. A. 29). 
A male, 52 feet long, with a dorsal fin, was found at Limekilns, 
in the Forth, in Feb. 1689, and described by Sibbald (Bal. 33, t. 1). 
After a hard gale of wind northerly, no less than twelve male 
whales, which undoubtedly came out of the Northern Ocean, were 
towed and driven on shore, all dead and in a high state of putrefac- 
tion, excepting one ; six were found upon the coast of Kent, two on 
the coast of Holland. One at the Hope Point, in the River Thames, 
was the only one seen alive; he ran aground and smothered himself 
in the mud, and was afterwards made a show of in the Greenland 
Docks. (Letter from Walderwick, on the coast of Suffolk, 7 March 
1788, in Sir Joseph Banks’s copy of Phil. Trans. in B. M. library.) 
Whitstable, Kent, Feb. 16, 1829 (P. Hunter & H. Wood, Mag. 
N. Hist. 1.197). A male, 62 feet long and 16 feet high. The 
skeleton of this animal, which had been prepared by Mr. J. Gould, 
was presented by Messrs. Enderby and Sturge to the Zoological 
Society ; but being claimed as a “royal fish,” it was left on the 
shore (H. Wood, J. c.). 
“The head is very thick and blunt in front, and is about one-third 
of the whole length of the animal; at its junction with the body is 
a large protuberance on the back, called the ‘ hunch of the neck ;’ 
immediately behind this, or the shoulders, is the thickest part of 
the body, which from this point gradually tapers off to the tail; but 
it does not become much smaller for about another third of the whole 
length, when the ‘small’ or tail commences; and at this point on 
the back is a large prominence of a pyramidal form, called the hump, 
from which a series of small processes run halfway down the small 
or tail, constituting what is called the ridge ; the body then contracts 
so much as to become not thicker than a man’s body, and terminates 
in the flukes or tail. The two flukes constitute a large triangular 
fin. The chest and belly are narrower than the broadest part of the 
back, and taper off evenly and beautifully towards the tail, giving a 
clear run. The depth of the head and body is in all parts, except 
the tail, greater than the width ; the head, viewed in front, presents 
a broad, somewhat flattened surface, rounded and contracted above, 
considerably expanded on the sides, and gradually contracted below, 
so as in some degree to attain a resemblance to the cutwater of a 
ship. At the angle formed by the anterior and superior surface on the 
left side is placed the single blow-hole or nostril, which in the 
dead animal is a slit or fissure in the form of an S, extending horizon- 
tally. In the right side of the nose and upper surface of the head 
is a large, almost triangular-shaped cavity, called the case, which is 
lined with a beautiful glistening membrane, and covered by a thick 
layer of muscular fibres and small tendons running in various di- 
rections, finally united by common integuments. This cavity is for 
the purpose of secreting and containing an oily fluid, which is, after 
death, converted into a granulated substance of a yellowish colour— 
the spermaceti. 
* Beneath the case and nostril, and projecting beyond the lower 
