98 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
correct. The specimen was not preserved. It seems that 
Mr. R. Adams found the animal, and he described it some time 
afterwards to Mr. W. H. Loosemore. Mr. Loosemore writes to 
me saying that the specimen was a male, two feet long from 
head to tip of tail, of a dark grey colour, white breast; tail 
about six inches, slightly bushy ; it stood seven or eight inches 
high; and he remarks in conclusion :—‘‘ Mr. Adams says it was 
the size of three Ferrets.’ This is not very exact evidence, and 
it is a thousand pities that the animal was not preserved. Mr. 
Loosemore himself has seen three Polecats alive in the High 
Bray district, but not within recent years. The last specimen 
caught here was, I think, in the Taw Valley in 1887, by Messrs. 
J. D. Prickham and Williams (‘ Victoria County History’). A 
trustworthy Parracombe gamekeeper reported seeing a Pine 
Marten (Mustela martes) in the woods at Hunter’s Inn a dozen 
years ago, but the last caught is in the possession of Mr. C. 
Bailey, of Ley Abbey. It was caught fifty years ago. A tenant 
of Mr. Bailey tells him that he caught another in the woods at 
Lee about forty-two years ago. 
Four white Moles (Talpa europea) have been captured: one 
at Arlington, two at Bishopstawton, and one at Swymbridge. 
Two more were reported captured at Combemartin. 
On Jan. 28th this year the Hamburg-American liner ‘ Fuerst 
Bismarck,’ when steaming at full speed near Corunna, was | 
charged bya Whale. The Whale became disabled. On Feb. 2nd 
the captain of the steamer ‘ Peggio,’ on arriving at Plymouth, 
reported sighting a dead Whale drifting towards the Bristol 
Channel. A little later the Whale was stranded at Hartland 
Point. The exact locality where it is now lying is on the rocks 
at Cow and Calf Point, near the Hartland Lighthouse. When 
the coastguardsmen first saw it floating on the water they 
thought it was a capsized yacht. The trouble is how to dispose 
of the Whale, as itis making its presence felt by its horrible 
effluvium. This Whale is evidently a Rorqual, and I believe it 
can be no other than the Common Rorqual (Balenoptera muscu- 
lus), but [have not seenit. It measured in length over sixty feet, 
and was ten feet across the lobes of the tail; a male, with long 
and distinet throat-folds ; the baleen was “‘ over two feet long ”’; 
its colour was pure white underneath and black above; the flipper 
