THE BOTTLE-NOSED WHALE. 47 



treating of our Cetacea, it is observed, with reference to the two indi- 

 viduals of this species recorded by Dale and Hunter, that ' these are the 

 documents upon which alone we have to depend as to the occurrence of 

 the IIi/per<ni(kin on the British shores.' The Avorks of Jenyns * and Jar- 

 dine t do not contain any reference to other British specimens. More 

 recently Mr. Thompson of Hull has, in the Magazine of Natural History 

 for 1838 (p. 221), described a whale of this species which was stranded 

 near that town in 1837, and whose skeleton is preserved in the Hull Lite- 

 rary and Philosophical Society. 



The first particular record known to me of the occurrence of the Hi/- 

 peroodon in Ireland is contained in the Dublin Philosophical Journal for 

 March, 1825, vol. i., where Dr. Jacob (now Professor of Anatomy and 

 Physiology in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland) very fully and 

 ably describes a specimen dissected by liim ; and at the same time, after a 

 due examination of its anatomy, treats of the place the genus should occupy 

 among the Cetacea. J The individual which formed the subject of the 

 essay " was stranded at Killiney, a few miles from Dublin, in the month of 

 September [1824?]." Its perfect skeleton is preserved in the Museum of 

 the College of Surgeons in Dublin. In Mr. Templeton's Catalogue of 

 Irish Vertebrate Animals,§ the Hyperoodon is mentioned as occasionally 

 met with. 



From Dr. Jacob I learned in November last [1839] that within twentj'- 

 five years he has known four bottle-nosed Avhales to be stranded within a 

 short distance of Dublin — of these all, except the one particularly de- 

 scribed by him, were taken at Howth, near the entrance of the bay : on 

 one occasion two of them occurred at the same time. [These were seen 

 by Dr. Ball, and he thinks in 1829 or 1830. W. T.] 



Early in the month of August, 1836, two llj/peravdims were stranded 

 at Dunany Point, near Dundalk. A friend, who saw the specimens when 

 quite recent, described them to me as bottle-nosed whales, and on my 

 sending to him, for the purpose of identification, outlines of the individuals 

 figured by Dale and Hunter, he stated that the form of Dale's figure re- 

 presented them well. The larger of these animals was 17 feet in length 

 and \i^ in girth ; the other was somewhat smaller. Having been stranded 

 on the property of his relative Lady Bellingham, their heads were for- 

 tunately reserved for my friend Dr. Bellingham of Dublin. I had lately 

 an opportunity of examining both of these specimens, one of which is in 

 the Museum of the School of Anatomy, Peter Street ; the other in that of 

 the Royal Dublin Society. In the latter collection is the head of a second 

 Hyperoodon, which in all probability was one of those already alluded to 

 as obtained at HoAvth, but I could not ascertain the locality whence it had 

 been received : it is similar in size to the smaller of the Dundalk speci- 

 mens, and a very few inches less than the larger, the measurements of which 

 are as follow : 



* Manual of British Vertebrate Animals, 1835. 



t Naturalist's Library, vol. on Whales, 1837. 



X The name Ilypcrcjodon is objected to by Dr. Jacob as expressing what the 

 animal does not possess — teeth in the ]iahUe, this part having been as smooth as 

 the rest of the month in the specimen he dissected. ('etn-diodon was proposed 

 by Dr. Jacob as a generic name, and Ilunteri Avas applied by him to the species. 

 This elaborate memoir, though published in 1825, is vumoticed in any of the above- 

 cited works. 



^^ Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. i., New Series. 



