96 PVGMY SPERM WHALE -PIERS. 



and the depth of water there is ten feet at low tide. The species 

 had never before been seen by any of the many fishermen and 

 other sea-going men of the locality. 



The winter of 1919-20 had been a most abnormally cold one, 

 with the temperature about zero (Fah.) for quite long periods, 

 and cold weather had set in very early in the season, about 

 the middle of December. Herring Cove had frozen on 12th 

 January, and the ice, which was five inches thick, extended 

 from the head of the inlet, nearly down to the government wharf 

 which is on the western shore three hundred yards from the head. 

 No doubt the whale on coming into the small inlet, had got under 

 the ice, and not happening to retrace its way, had drowned be- 

 neath the strong covering, as it was unable to reach the surface 

 to breathe. The black skin was abraded off the top of the head, 

 doubtless from the frantic efforts of the suffocating animal to force 

 its way through the ice. 



A newspaper reference to the capture of the whale caused me 

 to telephone for the head, fins and flukes to be sent to the Pro- 

 vincial Museum, where they arrived on 22nd January. On ex- 

 amination of these essential parts, 1 was much surprised to find 

 that the species was the Pygmy Sperm Whale {Kogia breviceps. 

 Blainville), a nearly adult female, belonging to the family Phy- 

 seteridae and related to the huge Sperm Whale or Cachalot (Phy- 

 seter macrocephalus, Linn.) from which it differs distinctly, apart 

 from the great inequality in size. An adult Pygmy Sperm Whale 

 grows to a length of only fifteen feet or so, while a male true 

 Sperm Whale may be nearly seventy feet in length. After mak- 

 mg careful drawings and measurements, the flesh was removed 

 from the head; and the skull, dorsal and left pectoral fins, and the 

 flukes were preserved ( Museum Accession No. 4829). 



Specimens taken on the United States roast. — The Pygmy 

 Sperm Whale, which is generally a rare species, has never before 

 been reported from Canadian waters, and previous to 1904 there 

 was no reference to its occurrence on the adjoining New England 

 coast from Maine south to Connecticut (vide Glover M. Allen's 

 List of Mammalia: Fauna of New England; Occas. Papers Bost. 

 Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 7, Bost., 1904; and F. B. Sumner's Catalogue 

 of Marine Fauna of Woods Hole and Vicinity, Bull. U. S. Bur. 

 of Fisheries, vol. 31, Wash., 1913). Since 1904 it has been twice 

 taken in Massachussetts waters, and a life-size cast and the 

 skeleton of one of these are in the museum of the Boston Society 



