42 
CETACEA. 
firing away as fast as they could get re-loaded, and the owners of boats, armed 
with harpoons, lances, and scythes, were lying in wait for him in all directions 
to give him a warm reception, as soon as he should show himself above water. 
After about three hours’ hunting, he was shot in the head by a marksman posted 
at the old bridge, when he immediately spouted an immense jet of blood, and a 
man, being near at the same time in a boat, struck him with a harpoon, and after 
some little further trouble he was landed, and proved to be a large specimen of 
the Delphinus Tursio, measuring about twelve feet and a half in length, and 
weighing fifteen hundredweight, — a fish whose appearance in our latitude is a 
very rare occurrence ; indeed there are only some four or five instances on re- 
cord of this fish having been seen in England, two of which have been taken 
near Lancaster, the one under notice, and another some years ago in Morecambe 
Bay.” 
The Porpoise, Phoccena communis , Lesson, Delphinus Phoccena, Linn., 
Appears to be common around the coast. 
It is so on the northern and north-east coast. Putty noted it in 1772 
as frequent on the Dublin coast, whence Dr. Jacob has often procured 
specimens. In Smith’s History of Cork the following appears : — 
“ Phocsena, Rondeletii de Piscib. i. 473; Johnston de Piscib. 155; JRaij Sy- 
nop. Piscib. 13 ; and D. Tyson,— The Porpoise. This is in all the havens about 
the coast. There is a good figure of it in Willoughby’s History of Fishes, Tab. A. 
fig. 2.* Great numbers of them were a few years ago left on the strand of 
Ballycotton. They pursue smaller fish and devour them. I have seen an army 
of porpoises, as it were, guarding the mouth of Youghall harbour, where they 
made great havoc among shoals of salmon which were then entering the Black- 
water River, and even chased some on shore.” 
Dr. Ball considers it as rather common on the southern coast. 
Mr. John Nimmo informed me, in 1837, of its being common in the 
summer months at Roundstone, Connemara. Summer is named by 
writers j- as the season of its occurrence on our northern coasts, and at 
this period it has come under my own notice. When crossing to the 
Copeland Islands, off the coast of Down, in three different years, in the 
month of June, porpoises were seen, and sometimes within thirty yards of 
our boat. These remarks are made in consequence of Mr. Bell’s observa- 
tion respecting Great Britain, namely, that “ it certainly frequents our 
coasts, more particularly late in the autumn and in the spring.” Brit, 
Quad. p. 474. Porpoises have of late years been seen so far up Belfast 
Bay as Conswater Beach, within half a mile of the town. 
I have seen the remains of the porpoise on the beach at Ballantrae, 
Ayrshire, and have the following note in my journal in reference to that 
locality : — 
“March 16th, 1846. — Mr. Sinclaire, who came from Ballintrae to-day, 
informs me that about thirty porpoises from three to six feet in length 
have, during the great take of herrings there within the last two or three 
weeks, been taken in the nets ; he saw their bodies on the beach.” 
In Harris’ History of the County Down, published in 1744, it is re- 
marked at page 242 : — 
“ There has been no considerable fishery for herrings in this bay [Carrickfer- 
gus] since the fleets were there at the Revolution. Yet they are often forced in 
by shoals of porpoises, of which, about twenty-three or twenty-four years ago, 
more than forty came up into it, and were pursued into shallow water by a 
* A good figure of the Porpoise. W. T. 
f M'Skimmin’s Carrickfergus ; I. D. Marshall’s Rathlin. 
