154 
JOUKNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
NATURAL HISTOEY NOTES. 
On the 28th February, 1870, I was asked to go to the Plymouth 
Railway Station to see a large fish that had been taken in the 
Mackerel nets, and purchased by Mr. Davey, fish salesman. Un- 
fortunately on my arrival at the Station I found that the fish was 
packed up in readiness to send to London by a train just starting, 
but I was able to see enough of it to ascertain that it was a 
cetacean and an uncommon species. 
I wrote to Dr. Gray, by the evening post, telling him that 
the animal would be in the Columbia Market on the following 
morning, and asking him to send some one from the Museum 
to look after it and ascertain the species. I suppose, however, 
nothing was done, although Dr. Gray acknowledged my letter, 
and a rare specimen might have been lost ; — as we shall see it had 
a narrow escape. The cetacean reached the Columbia Market in 
due course and was offered for sale. A customer soon presented 
himself — an enterprising individual — who mounted the carcase on 
a handcart roughly enclosed, and exhibited it (for a consideration) 
in the streets of London, loudly proclaiming the capture of a sea 
monster, a cross between a Shark and a Whale." Fortunately 
the exhibition was met by Mr. Gerrard of the British Museum, 
who made a bargain with the proprietor. 
The animal proved to be Risso's Grampus f Grampus RissoanusJ 
a very rare Mediterranean species. It was taken about twenty 
miles off the Eddystone. It was rather more than eleven feet 
long, weighed about seven hundred weight, and was a female. 
The species has been mentioned as British only once before, resting 
on the authority of a skull found by Mr. Berry. 
Mr. Gosse writes me through a friend : — 
" On August 5th, 1832, I was returning from Newfoundland to 
England, and was sailing up the British Channel close to the land. 
When just off Berryhead I saw under the ship's bow a large 
cetacean of a milky white hue, but appearing slightly tinged with 
