THE GRAMPUS. 43 



ship's crew, who fired at them till they lodged them in the Ouze about White- 

 house, when, the tide retiring, they were all taken, and yielded great quantities 

 of oil. A suit was commenced by the Earl of Donegal for tlie royalty of these 

 large fish against the captors ; which at length, afler great expense, was carried 

 in favour of the royalty." 



A fisherman at Newcastle (County Down) informed me in October, 1851, 

 that porpoises are numerous on that part of the coast, and are frequently 

 taken in the herring-nets. He had seen young ones of not more than ten 

 pounds' weight following the parent. 



The Grampus, Phocana Orca, F. Cuv., Delpldnus Orca, Fabr., 



Visits the coast. 



Templeton states that it " appears on the coast of Ireland along with the 

 herring : " Dr. J. D. ?^Iarsliall, that it is " met with in great numbers 

 [about Rathlin] during summer, and is said to be very mischievous, and 

 not unfrequently to endanger boats, — an observation indicating that the 

 true grampus is alluded to. In M'Skimmin's History of Carrickfergus 

 it is said to be " an occasional visitor during summer ; " and " a very 

 large fish called the herring-hog, seen in pursuit of others, especially of 

 the herring, with a larger dorsal fin." and hence imagined by this writer 

 to be the fin-backed whale, is probably the grampus : he mentions one 

 as cast ashore at Kilroot. In M-Skimmin's first edition, 1811, he notes 

 the " herring-hog, said to be a very large fish, often upwards of twenty 

 feet long," p. 184. 



The Cetacea mentioned in Sampson's History of Londonderry as visiting 

 that coast are the porpoise and the grampus. 



I am enabled to state that this species occurs on the north-east coast, 

 from the examination of a cranium which came under my notice in 1839, 

 when it was presented by Dr. Drummond to the Belfast Museum. The 

 animal had been taken at Donaghadee ten or twelve years before that 

 time. This cranium is thirty-two inches and a half in extreme length, and 

 sixteen inches and a quarter in height ; it perfectly agrees with that 

 represented in Cuvier's Oss. Foss. pi. 22;}, f. 3 ; edit. 183-1. 



In Rutty's Dublin it is remarked under Grampus, " that forty-six 

 were said to have been cast upon our coast in March, 1716;" but these 

 were more probably Delp. melas. The grampus is included in the Fauna 

 of Cork. The following paragraphs a])peared in the Cork Reporter, and 

 were copied into the Northern Whig, a Belfast newspaper, at the dates men- 

 tioned. 



" Shoal of Grampuses. — About ten o'clock on Sunday a shoal of grampuses, 

 about sixty in number, entered our harbour, and continued their course imtil 

 they readied Horsehead, where they turned. They were chased by all the boats 

 in the harbour, and several shots were fired at them. The scene was indeed 

 extraordinary ; the strange visitors rolled and tumbled about, and spouted up 

 the water to a considerable height. The tide was on the ebb, and the young 

 monsters, finding themselves hotly pursued, made for the harbour, which they 

 passed at about twelve o'clock. Several were taken, one of them weighing over 

 three tons." N. Whig, July 31, 1841. 



" Shoal of Whales. — IJantry Bay has been the scene of great excitement, 

 high enjoyment, and most valuable occupation to the people of this locality, this 

 week, in consequence of a very largo shoal of whales — grampus species — which 

 entered that liarbour on Monday, and found their way to the romantic bay of 

 Glengarift" on Tuesday — the evening of which day Ibuud all kinds of boats, 

 weapons, and missiles in requisition for the attack on the herd. An immense 

 number were secured, — a correspondent states three hundred, the value of 



