of Edinburgh, Session 1870 - 71 . 
367 
The first instance on record of the stranding of a sperm-whale 
on the Scottish coasts is the specimen described in the “ Phal- 
ainologia Nova,” by Sir R. Sibbald, which came ashore at Lime 
Kilns, on the north side of the Forth, in February 1689. It 
was a male, 52 feet long, and had 42 teeth in the lower jaw. 
Several portions of this animal were preserved by Sibbald in his 
museum, and formed a part of the collection which was presented 
by him* to the University of Edinburgh. 
In the copy of the “ Phalainologia Nova,” in the library of the 
Royal College of Physicians of this city, a manuscript letter has 
been inserted, in which an account is given of the stranding of 
another sperm whale in the Forth. The manuscript is entitled 
“ Part of a Letter from Mr James Paterson, Keeper of the 
Balfourean Museum at Edinburgh, to Mr Edward Lhwyd, Keeper 
of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Edinburgh, July 22, 1701.” 
Penes E. W.f 
“ There was lately a pretty big whale came in at Crawmond. It 
had no whalebone, and teeth only in the lower jaw, which, accord- 
ing to Sir R. Sibbald, is the characteristick of yt kind which 
has ye sperma cete. You have ys figured in Jonston, tab. 42 of 
his Fishes. J Diverse of our physicians were present at ye opening 
* Auctarium Mussei Balfouriani e Musseo Sibbaldiano : sive Enumeratio 
et Descriptio Rerum Rariorum, tam Naturalium, quam Artificialium, tam 
Domesticarum quam Exoticarum : quas Robertus Sibbaldus, M.D. Eques 
Auratus, Academiae Edinburgenae donavit. Edinburgh impressum per Aca- 
demise Typographum, Sumptibus Academiae, 1697. In this catalogue, under 
the head “ De Piscibus Viviparis Raribus,” the following specimens obtained 
from this sperm whale are referred, to : — A tooth, the crystalline humour of 
the eye, a fragment of the flesh and skin, and a specimen of spermaceti 
from the head. “ The Sperma Ceti was lodged most of it within the skull of 
it, which was of a prodigious bigness.” 
+ Mr Small, the Librarian to the University and to the College of Physi- 
cians, informs me that the initials “ E. W.” are in all probability those of 
Dr Edward Wright of Kersie, who became a Fellow of the College in 1753. 
His valuable library of works on natural history, of which the copy of the 
“ Phalainologia Nova,” above referred to, formed a part, was presented, in 
1761, to the College by Alexander Gibson Wright, Esq. of Cliftonhall. 
X The “ Historia Naturalis,” by Joannes Jonstonus, M.D., was published 
at Amsterdam in 1657. Book v. De piscibus et cetis, contains a folio plate, 
tab. 42, on which is represented a great whale, 60 feet long, lying on its right 
side, and presenting its abdomen, with a large pendulous penis, to the ob- 
server. From the form of the head and the shape of the lower jaw it is 
