632 
Proceedings of the Pioyal Society 
4. Additional Notes on the Occurrence of the Sperm-Whale 
in the Scottish Seas. By Professor Turner. 
In a communication made to this Society on the 6th Februarj 7 , 
1871, I noted the capture of a sperm-whale at Oban in May, 1829, 
and I collected from various sources records of the stranding of 
seven additional specimens on the Scottish coasts. 
Since that communication was published, a large sperm-whale 
has come ashore on the west coast of the Isle of Skye, some parti¬ 
culars concerning which I propose to relate in this communication. 
Tourists in Skye, during the past autumn, who visited Loch 
Corruisk by boat from Torrin, as they sailed up Loch Scavaig, be¬ 
came conscious, by another sense than that of sight, that a large 
animal in a state of putrefaction was in their immediate vicinity. 
A correspondent of the “Glasgow Herald,” writing in July last, 
states that a great whale entered Loch Scavaig about the middle of 
that month, and after floundering about, bellowing like a bull 
amongst the rocks, amidst which it had become entangled, it died 
after a lapse of two or three days. Large quantities of blubber 
were removed from the carcase without loss of time by the neigh¬ 
bouring fishermen, but enough of the external form remained to 
enable the correspondent to give the following description: Skin 
black, thick and corrugated. Head enormous, square, ending in a 
flat snout some eight or ten feet across, looking like a peat stack. 
Eye small, surrounded with lashes, some 16 feet from the snout. 
Blower covered with a flap a foot long. Under jaw slender, shorter 
than the upper, in it were thirty-six teeth shaped like the ends of 
ducks’ eggs. No teeth were visible in the upper jaw. The whale 
could not be short of 60 feet in length. 
My attention having been directed by Sir Robert Christison to 
the newspaper report, I at once recognised from the form of the 
head, jaw, and teeth, that the characters were those of the sperm- 
whale (Physeter macrocephalus ), and I determined, if possible, to 
obtain a portion, if not the whole of its skeleton. The distance, 
however, of the spot, where the carcase was lying,' from human 
habitations, and the want of proper appliances for lifting heavy 
objects, have proved hindrances to the removal of the huge cranium 
of the animal, but the two halves of the lower jaw, and a number 
