56 CETACEA. 



of Ireland, the Physeter Tursio is noticed, but merely in the following words : 

 • — ' Thrown ashore on the western coast occasionally.' " 



On the 15th Nov. 1846, Major Walker wrote me that " the round white 

 spot either before or behind the back fin and quite close to it was not an 

 accidental mark, as it appeared in all — either five or seven — of them." He 

 remarks, " The great height and narrowness of the back fin led me, on 

 first perceiving it, to believe that it was a fishing cot with the black taiTed 

 sail made up to the mast." * And in a subsequent letter the same gentle- 

 man mentioned that he had met the captain of a Sunderland vessel to 

 whom the high-finned cachalot was known, and who confirmed his recol- 

 lection as to the narrowiiess and great height of the fin. 



The Common Whale, Balcena Mysticetus, Linn., 



Is said to have been taken on the coast on different occasions, but no 

 description to enable a correct judgment to be arrived at respecting the 

 species has come under my inspection. 



The simple fact of this and the Balanoptera producing whalebone has 

 led to both species being referred to under one name. 



I shall give some notices which may possibly apply to this species. 



" Here [at Slime Head ' the furthest into the sea, and most western point of 

 those parts'] a great whale was cast in, the last day of December, 1650; and 

 another about forty }'ears before." — O" Flaherty^ s H-' lar Connaught, written in 

 1684, p. 109. 



"Large Whale. — There was lately killed on the N. W. coast of this king- 

 dom, in the Bay of Enver near Donegal, a large whale, 02 feet long, 15 feet deep 

 as it lay, its tongue filled eleven hogsheads. The whalebone is computed to be 

 worth 8 or 900 pounds. The blubber filled 62 nun puncheons." — Repository of 

 the Medico-Philosophical Society,f No. 29. M.S. in Library of R. I. Academy. J 



In May, 1838, I was informed by my venerable friend the late Dr. 

 M'Donnell of Belfast, that he had heard on good authority of the occur- 

 rence upwards of forty years previously of two large whales — one of them 

 seventy feet long — on the northern coast of Antrim. Within the last 

 twelve years a portion of a small whale taken at Portstewart was sent him, 

 and from his description of this animal I considered it to have been B. 

 3Iysticetiis. 



Mr. John Nimmo of Roundstone (Co. Galway) saw the remains of what 

 he termed a baleen whale on Deer Island in 1837; the blubber was 

 boiled and the oil extracted : it was claimed by the lord of the soil, Mr. 

 Martin. 



Either the B. 3ft/sttcetus or Balanoptera will be found included with the 

 spermaceti whale in extracts which I have made from the writings of Dr. 

 Molyneux and Arthur Young. 



The following notices of whales, the species of which must remain un- 

 known, may be introduced here. 



In 1782 or 1783 a very old gentlemen of my acquaintance saAV a whale, 

 seventy feet in length, on the beach of Glenarm Bay — it may be the same 



* In the paper as already published there was a wood-cut exhibiting the ap- 

 pearance of the High-finned Cachalot, as seen by Capt. Walker. 



t This Society existed from 1756 — 1784 ; the last date in the Repository is 

 March 2, 1772.— /l^. Smith. 



% Copied from a book of extracts lent me for the purpose by Dr. Aquila 

 Smith of Dublin, Nov. 1839. 



