86 SEALS AND WHALES OE THE BRLTLSLI SEAS. 



very wide geograpliical range, having been found in almost every sea between 

 lat. 60^ nortli and 60' soutli. Tlie attempt has beeii made, I thinlc unsuccess- 

 full}', to sliow tliat tlie Sperm Whale of the Soutliern Hemisphere is distinct 

 from that of tlie northern ; there seems, however, no reason, at present, to doubt, 

 althougli, of course, it ma}' eventually be found otherwise, that the same 

 species of Sperm Whale ranges over the whole of this vast tract of ocean. 

 North of about 40'- it appears to be onl}-- a straggler, and although the Arctic 

 seas are almost alwa)-s stated by authors to be its head-quarters, very few 

 well-authenticated instances of its occurrence farther north than Scotland are 

 on record ; Lilljcborg excludes it from his account of the Scandinavian 

 cetacea, but Herr Collett sa)-s that within the last 100 years, at least two 

 individuals of this species ha\-e been stranded on the Norwegian coast, and 

 that Professor Sars, during a stay in L.offoden, received information which 

 convinced him that one was seen there in the summer of 1865. 



From the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century, 

 the stranding of individuals of this species on the coast of Great Britain, and, 

 indeed, of other countries in Europe from the Netherlands to the Mediter- 

 ranean, was by no means a rare occurrence ; these were generally solitary 

 males, but occasionally small "schools" were met ^\ith, as in July, 1577, in 

 the Scheldt, where three were taken ; also, at Hunstanton, in Norfolk, in 

 1646, mentioned below. 



Of its occurrence on the British coast there are numerous instances ; in all 

 cases, however, they are belie\-ed by Andrew Murray to have been stragglers, 

 " which have rounded Cape Horn (they have never been known to double the 

 Cape of Good Hope) or unpromising colonics, for they are becoming scarcer 

 and scarcer in more than their due proportion."* Eight or ten individuals of 

 this species have occiuTed on the coast of Scotland between the years 1689 

 and 1871 (Alston, ' Fauna of Scot.', p. 18). 



'Ceograpliical iJi.slrHjii ion of Jianimalia,' by Andrew Murray, iS66, p. 211. 



