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NOTES ON THE WHALES OF NORFOLK. 
scattered articles and notes are to be found in more recent 
years, Mr. Southwell found existing records in a somewhat 
chaotic state, since the nomenclature was unsatisfactory and 
involved. We can wholly rely on his findings and his 
placing of the species. That all stranded Whales are not 
recorded goes without saying : only in December, 1910, I 
received a letter from the Receiver of Wrecks at King’s 
Lynn, in which I was assured that the Whale recently 
cast ashore at Holme (Hunstanton) was the fifth that had 
been stranded in two years : one at North Wootton ; one at 
Fleethaven ; one at Stiffkey ; one at Morston ; and then the 
Holme derelict. It is indeed a pity that four of these five 
should be buried “ unnamed and unwept,” and equally to 
be regretted that no description has been preserved likely 
to lead to ultimate identification. 
Of the 20 Whales on the British list, Mr. Southwell, in 
a tabulated list of the Mammalia of Essex, Norfolk, York- 
shire, Northumberland, and Durham, gives 8 species for 
Essex, 9 for Norfolk, 11 for Yorkshire, and 9 for the other 
two. 
(1.) The Atlantic Right Whale ( Balcenoptera mysticetus ) 
heads the list as an accidental visitor to Norfolk, the other 
counties being unrepresented. Even this occurrence Mr. 
Southwell receives with hesitation, suggesting that the 
example recorded by the Pagets (“ Sketch of the Natural 
History of Great Yarmouth,” 1834) as having been taken 
near Yarmouth in July 8th, 1784, was an allied form ( B. 
Biscayensis ). I am inclined to think that the Pagets had 
good reason for giving the species as the Right Whale : in 
those days fleets of vessels sailed from the East Coast ports 
to the great whale fishery: the beast was commoner then 
than it is to-day, and ventured further south, and it is 
quite possible that wounded or frightened individuals might 
have fled hither, or been drifted, living or dead, by tidal 
influences into strange waters. Mr. Southwell has given in 
