466 THE ZOOLOGIST, 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



Whale on the Lincolnshire Coast in the Seventeenth Century. — 

 It will no doubt be generally agreed that all notes in non-zoological 

 literature of occurrences of cetaceans on or off the coasts of the 

 British Isles ought to be reproduced, for future reference, into the 

 pages of the ' Zoologist ' ; and I therefore offer the following 

 quotation from a letter dated " March 25, 1692-3," and signed 

 "Westmorland," the writer being probably Rachel, wife of Sir Vere 

 Fane who became fourth Earl of Westmorland. The letter is 

 published in full in ' The Ancestor,' xi. (Oct. 1904), p. 150 :— " Thare 

 is a great whale com a shore in lincornshire of a prodidous bigth so 

 that a man of six feet hiy may stand uprite in his mouth & it is sold 

 for a thousan pound." Of course no Whale ever yet calved was of 

 such "a prodidous bigth" that a man six feet "hiy" could stand 

 upright in its mouth, but if we for the moment ignore the palate and 

 all the contents of the enormous head above it, a large Sperm Whale 

 might be suggestive of the possibility. The next choice would lie 

 with a Greenland Right Whale, but as this species has never been 

 known to move far from the ice, it may safely be assumed that no 

 example ever came ashore in Lincolnshire. The Nordkaper or 

 Biscayan Right Whale comes a bad third, and the Rorquals nowhere. 

 So there can be little doubt that this Whale was a Sperm. The late 

 Mr. T. Southwell gives several instances of its occurrence on the 

 British coasts in his ' Seals and Whales of the British Seas,' and 

 several have been killed during the last few years by the Einwhalers 

 working off the Shetland coast ; but of course it is very far less 

 numerous now than it was one, two, or more centuries ago. The 

 large sum for which the carcase is said to have been sold (and repre- 

 senting an even larger amount at the present value of money), 

 though it may well be an exaggeration, would certainly indicate 

 either a Sperm or a Right Whale ; the biggest Blue Rorqual would not 

 have fetched nearly so much. — Alfred Heneage Cocks (Poynetts, 

 Skirmett, near Henley-on-Thames). 



AVES. 



Rough-legged Buzzard in Suffolk. — Driving along the road at 

 Friston, Suffolk, on November 1th, I had the great pleasure of seeing 



