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NOTES ON THE WHALES OF NORFOLK. 
November, 1858, in the Wash. Length, 32 feet. 
March, 1875, Mr. Southwell records one at Happisburgh; 
and in the August of same year another dead, in Lynn Roads. 
I have no records of any subsequent examples, but it is just 
probable that more than one, buried in unnamed graves in 
North Norfolk, may have belonged to this species. The 
species attains a length of 80 feet, and probably sometimes 
more. 
The Lesser Rorqual ( Balcenoptera rostrata ) has probably 
been more often met with than any other of the larger 
Whales. It grows to a length of 30 feet. The earliest 
recorded Norfolk occurrence appears to have been in 1829, 
at Runton. Mr. Southwell mentions two or three others. 
The species is distinguished by a long, sharp snout, a 
curiously corrugated skin beneath the throat, and by a white 
band across the centre of each pectoral fin. An exciting 
incident occurred in Yarmouth Harbour in 1890, when a 
full-grown example found its way in from the sea, and being 
set upon by boats crews, armed with all kinds of weapons, 
was harrassed to death, a fearful blow which smashed its 
“ beak ” in one of its wild dashes at the quay head, hastening 
its dissolution. The animal was preserved by a local bird 
stufFer, and after a lengthy exhibition in the Westminster 
Aquarium was also exhibited at Norwich and Lowestoft. The 
most recent occurrence is that of a carcase washed ashore at 
Lowestoft on October 15th, 1911, and another at the same 
time at Sizewell, in Suffolk. 
The Northern Sperm Whale ( Physeter macroccephalus ) . 
Sir Thomas Browne speaks of a Spermaceti of 62 feet in 
length coming ashore at Wells ; of another about 20 years 
before at Hunstanton ; and of eight or nine others coming 
ashore in the same neighbourhood, of which two had young 
ones after they had been forsaken by the water. In a foot- 
note to Mr. Southwell’s edition of Sir Thomas Browne’s 
Natural History of Norfolk, one of 57 feet is' recorded as 
