HIGH-FINNED CACHALOT. 
55 
holding her by the harpoon : he had for some time ill success, from firing when 
too near, for the harpoon does not then fly true, but at 14 or 15 yards’ distance, 
which is what he would choose, it flies straight ; has killed several at 25 yards.” 
Other interesting particulars are given, and it is finally remarked : — 
“ I have been the more particular in giving an account of this undertaking, 
because the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. in London has long since 
given premiums for the invention of the gun-harpoon, supposing it to be ori- 
ginal.” P. 157. 
In Rutty’s Natural History of the County of Dublin it is stated that 
one of these whales — 
“ was cast upon our coast in the year 1766, and the sperma was taken from it 
and refined here in Dublin.” Vol. i. p. 369. 
In 1837 Dr. R. Ball mentioned to me that he had often heard of an 
immense whale which was taken or cast ashore at Youghal about seventy 
years before that time. It was said to have been seventy feet in length, 
and its height so great that his grandfather, a tall man, when on horse- 
back beside the whale, held up his whip, and the top of it could not be 
seen from the opposite side of the animal. The spermaceti-was said to 
have been carried away in buckets-full. 
Mr. John Nimmo of Roundstone, Connemara, informed me in 1837, 
that a spermaceti whale was driven ashore about fifteen years previously 
in a sandy bay near that village. Mr. Martin, on whose property it was 
stranded, was stated to have realized £50 by the spermaceti. 
High-finned Cachalot, Physeter Tursio, Linn. 
In the Annals of Natural History for November, 1846, vol. xviii., p. 310, 
I published the following communication relative to this species : — 
“ I am happy to be enabled to join my friend Professor Bell (see British Mam- 
malia, p. 512) in maintaining the existence of this species, which Cuvier, from 
the unsatisfactory nature of the data respecting it, believed to be fictitious : — 
even yet no proper description or figure has been published. 
Professor Bell comes to his conclusion on information to which Cuvier had not 
access, and which was communicated to him by Mr. Barclay of Zetland. The 
occurrence of the species on the coast of Ireland was made known to me by 
Capt. Thomas Walker, who replied as follows to a letter requesting the fullest 
information on the subject: — ‘ Kilmore, Bridgetown, Wexford, July 28, 1846: 
— As to the high-finned Cachalots, I saw them myself about seven years ago, and 
only know them to have been so from the descriptions in works of natural history 
which I consulted to find out what they were. There were either five or seven 
of them — I now forget which number, but I think the latter, and two of them 
were much larger than the rest, apparently about twenty-five feet long, from 
comparing them with the length of the boat in which I was. When first I saw 
one I thought it was a cot [small flat-bottomed boat] at anchor with her tarred 
sail made up to the mast ; more then rose, and they crossed in a long file the 
bows of my boat so close, that I put about the boat (though of seven tons burden) 
fearing they would upset her. When I put about they were not more than 
three or four yards from me : the back fin appeared about ten or twelve feet high, 
and had either before or behind it (I cannot now recollect which) a round white 
spot on the back ; all the rest of the body that showed was black like a porpoise. 
I did not see the head or tail, nor more than a portion of the back ; they went 
steadily, not rolling like a porpoise.’ 
There certainly is no proof here that the species noticed was a Physeter , but 
that it was what has been called the High-finned Cachalot does not in my 
opinion admit of doubt. In Templeton’s Catalogue of the Vertebrate Animals 
