Tate on the Porpoise. 179 



Mr. Grey, of Longhoughton, who witnessed this, was confident 

 that the sound proceeded from the mouth. It was very loud 

 and hoarse, deeper than the bellowing of a bull, and more 

 resembling the hoarse cry of the elephant. 



The home of the Phocana melas is in the northern sub-arctic 

 seas. Herds of them not unfrequently come ashore on the 

 islands of Orkney, Shetland, Fseroe, and Iceland, where they 

 are eagerly caught on account of the value of the oil derived 

 from the blubber. In the Shetlands they are called the " Caaing 

 Whale." Their descent on our coast is, however, a very rare 

 event ; so rare, indeed, that none of the living residents along 

 the Northumberland coast ever saw or heard of a similar occur- 

 rence. Wallis, in his History of Northumberland, relates that 

 " Sixty-three," of what he calls the Grampus Bottle-nose or 

 Great Porpess (Delphinus Orca), "came on shore at Shorestone, 

 near North Sunderland, 29th July, 1734, about noon; sixty of 

 them were between fourteen and nineteen feet long, and the 

 other three about eight feet. They were all alive when they 

 came on shore, and made a hideous noise, but were soon killed 

 by the country people, who removed them one by one, with six 

 oxen and two horses, and made about ten pounds by the blub- 

 ber. The same kind of noise was heard in the sea the night 

 before by the shepherds in the fields, when it is supposed they 

 were sensible of their distress in shoal water." I have little 

 doubt of Wallis's "Porpess" being the Phocana melas; for 

 although the Delphinus, or rather Phocana Orca, is gregarious, 

 travelling together in companies of six or eight, they do not 

 herd together in large numbers. Until lately, these two species 

 were not well discriminated ; they much resemble each J other ; 

 but in the Phocana Orca the pectoral swimmers are broad and 

 oval, while in the Phocana melas they are long and narrow ; the 

 head of the former is rounded and obtuse, but it is not truncated 

 like that of the latter. 



It cannot be uninteresting to inquire into the cause of a 

 phenomenon, which seems to present itself only at intervals of 

 about a century. The state of the weather will not, I think, 

 account for the recent stranding of these Porpoises on our 

 coast ; for the sea, during some weeks previously, had been calm 

 and smooth ; westerly winds had prevailed until the preceding 

 Saturday, when the wind veered to the north-east, but the sea 

 was not raised or affected by the change. Nor can the event 

 be attributed to any peculiar condition of the animals themselves, 

 for they appeared perfectly healthy, and when cut up exhibited 

 no symptoms of disease. The habits of the animal may, how- 

 ever, furnish an explanation. They are gregarious, going to- 

 gether in large herds, sometimes of two or three hundred, and 



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