42 CETACEA. 



tiring away as fast as they could get re-loaded, and the owners of boats, armed 

 Avith harpoons, lances, and scythes, were lying in wait for him in all directions 

 to give him a warm reception, as soon as he should show himself above water. 

 After about three hours' hunting, he was shot in the head by a marksman posted 

 at the old bridge, when he immediately spouted an immense jet of blood, and a 

 man, being near at the same time in a boat, struck him with a harpoon, and after 

 some little further trouble he was landed, and ]>roved to be a large specimen of 

 the Delphinus Tursio, measuring about twelve feet and a half in length, and 

 weighing hfteen hundredweight, — a fish whose appearance in our latitude is a 

 very rare occurrence ; indeed there are only some four or five instances on re- 

 cord of this lish having been seen in England, two of which have been taken 

 near Lancaster, the one under notice, and another some years ago in Morecambe 

 Bay." 



The Porpoise, Phoccp.na communis, Lesson, Delphinus Phocccna, Linn., 



Appears to be common around the coast. 



It is so on the»northern and north-east coast. Rutty noted it in 1772 

 as frequent on the Dublin coast, whence Dr. Jacob has often procured 

 specimens. In Smith's History of Cork the following appears : — 



" Phocsena, Bondeletii de Piscib. i. 473; Johnston de Piscib. 155; Raij Sy- 

 nop. Piscib. 13 ; and D. Tyson, — The Porpoise. This is in all the havens about 

 the coast. There is a good figure of it in Willoughby's History of Fishes, Tab. A. 

 fig. 2.* Great numbers of them were a few years ago left on the strand of 

 Ballycotton. They pursue smaller fish and devour them. 1 have seen an army 

 of porpoises, as it were, guarding the mouth of Youghall harbour, where they 

 made great havoc among shoals of salmon which were then entering the Black- 

 water River, and even chased some on shore." 



Dr. Ball considers it as rather common on the southern coast. 



Mr. John Nimmo informed me, in 1837, of its being common in the 

 summer months at Roundstone, Connemara. Summer is named by 

 writers t as the season of its occurrence on our northern coasts, and at 

 this period it has come under my own notice. When crossing to the 

 C^opeland Islands, off the coast of Down, in three different years, in the 

 month of June, porpoises were seen, and sometimes within thirty yards of 

 our boat. These remarks are made in consequence of Mr. Bell's observa- 

 tion respecting Great Britain, namely, that " it certainly frequents our 

 coasts, more particularly late in the autumn and in the spring." Brit. 

 Quad. p. 474. Porpoises have of late years been seen so far up Belfast 

 Bay as Conswater Beach, within half a mile of the town. 



I have seen the remains of the poi-poise on the beach at Ballantrae, 

 A\T>shire, and have the following note in my journal in reference to that 

 locality : — 



"March 16th, 1846. — Mr. Sinclairc, who came from Ballintrae to-day, 

 informs me that about thirty porpoises from three to six feet in length 

 have, during the great take of herrings there within the last two or three 

 weeks, been taken in the nets ; he saw their bodies on the beach." 



In Harris' History of the County Down, published in 1744, it is re- 

 marked at page 242 : — 



" There has been no considerable fishery for herrings in this bay [Carrickfer- 

 gus] since the fleets were there at the Revolution. Yet they are often forced iu 

 by shoals of porpoises, of which, about twenty-three or twenty-four years ago, 

 more than forty came up into it, and were pursued into shallow water by a 



* A good figure of the Porpoise. W. T. 

 t M'Skimmin's Carrickfergus ; I. D. Marshall's Rathlin. 



