BOTTLE-NOSED WHALE. 49 



felt a scientific interest in the spectacle, had the opportunity of seeing the 

 animal in a perfect state. During the progress of cutting up, on the day 

 after its death, the body M-as still warm and smoking. 



To the intelligent farmer whose property this whale became I showed 

 all the figures of Cetacea in Mr. Bell's work, when he at once, from the 

 narrow elongated snout, and head arising abruptly from it, identified the 

 specimen with the Ui/peroodon, objecting only to the snout not beino- 

 represented so long com]iaratively as in the real animal. To another 

 respectable farmer who had got its head I exhibited these figures, and he 

 also singled out the Ilyperoodon, considering the figure of Dale's speci- 

 men as more characteristic of the general form of the animal than that 

 of Hunter's : the tail of the latter, however, being the better liked. The 

 gape or opening of the mouth was remarked to be thus .-w, or " like 

 the letter/," teeth none, the snout shaped like a bottle: it was similarly 

 described by our first informant. In a newspaper paragraph respecting 

 this whale it was stated that " the blubber produced 140 gallons of oif 

 ■which Avere computed to be worth £20 sterling." ' 



In connexion with the occurrence of this llyperooilon on the coast of 

 Down, anovel and interesting fact is to be recorded— that there evidently 

 was a migration or simultaneous movement of these Cetacm towards the 

 British shores during the last autumn, several individuals having within 

 a very/e?r weeks been obtained in England and Scotland, as well as Ire- 

 land ; but all upon a limited range of coast bounding the Irish Sea and 

 Its vicinity. The first capture known to me is that of the individual 

 already recorded. In the Northern Whig, published at Belfast on the 

 26th September, it was stated that " A bottle-nosed whale, 20 feet Ion"-, 

 was last week left on the beach at Flimby, near Cockermouth." In the 

 Belfast News-Letter of October 1st appeared the following notice,— 

 " A whale captured near Liverpool.— On Tuesday last a whale was left 

 by the receding tide on East Hoyle bank, and speedily captured by the 

 fishermen. Its length is 24 feet ; its girth round the centre of the body 

 13 feet. * Although this is not called the bottle-nosed species, it seems 

 to me a fair presumption so to consider the specimen, as its dimensions 

 accord with the other individuals taken about the same time, and of which 

 one was obtained on the coast of the adjacent county of Cumberland. In 

 the Belfast Commercial Chronicle of October 21st Avas this para- 

 graph, copied from the Stranraer Advertiser :— 



" Ca^jifio-eo/JF/mZesmLoc/wyaM.— On Tuesday morning last, 15th of October f 

 a very unusual appearance presented itself in Kirkcohii. Two monsters of the 

 deep, of the bottle-nosed description of whale, had come round the Scaur and 

 embayed themselves ; the receding tide swept its treacherous waters from under 

 tiiem, and finding themselves grounded their mighty exertions were truly tenilic 

 yet unavailmg tor their extrication. Mr. Robertson of Clendry xvas the first who 

 took notice of the errant strangers, and arming himself and retainers Avith pitch- 



* In connexion with this paragi-aph it was observed—" On Fridav two youn<^ 

 Avhales were got in the Clyde— the one on the beach at Roseneath, the other 

 above Dumbarton or West Ferry." Unfortunately no particulars are given that 

 would lead to a knowledge of the species. About the same time it was men- 

 tioned in the newspapers that a whale proceeding southward had passed close 

 to one of the packets plying between Holykead and Dublin. 

 ^ t About four weeks previous to this time a friend informed me that upon 

 two successive days a whale (which he saw) a]ipeared off Ballantrae (Ayrshire) 

 some miles north of Lochiyan ; on the second dav it was about two miles to the 

 south of where it was seen on the preceding, and was still advancing southwards. 



E 



