Whale of this species, to judge from an old print now before me, was stranded at
the Nore and taken to Blackwall Dock.
Mr. Southwell writes in the ‘ Field,’ January 30, 1904:
‘ The winter of 1752-3 seems to have witnessed an influx of these animals.
One came ashore at Weymouth on December 14, 1752, and three in the following
February at Findhorn in Moray; probably there were others. But in the winter
of 1763-4 a still larger number were met with, no less than twelve, perhaps
thirteen, being stranded, mostly in twos, between the* North Foreland and the
coast of Holland. The skeleton of one of those which came ashore in the Isle of
Thanet is said to have been for many years exhibited in Rackstrow’s Museum, in
Fleet Street. All these were males, and apparently full-grown.’
One reached the Kent shore in 1769, and in 1788 a number came to a bad
end in the Channel, at least six being stranded near the mouth of the Thames; one
ascended the river for some distance. The skeleton of the Whale preserved at Burton
Constable is that of an example which was found on the shore at Holderness,
Yorkshire, in 1825; four years later, in February 1829, another got into shallow
water at Whitstable, Kent. At Flimby, Cumberland, according to the Rev.
H. A. Macpherson, one was cast ashore on April 21, 1840.
Thompson gives some particulars of Irish examples, stating that three were
taken between 1687 and 1691, on the west coast, while some years previous to 1750
another was washed ashore near Castlehaven. A large Sperm Whale was stranded
near Dublin in 1766, and others at Youghal (1773) and in Connemara (1822).
Perhaps the latest was stranded in county Mayo in June 1889.2
The Scottish records were collected by Sir William Turner, and are as
follows: Hoxay, Orkney, where some teeth were found by Mr. G. Petrie in a
structure which is considered to date from the ninth or tenth century; Limekilns,
Firth of Forth, February 1689; Cramond, 1701; Monifieth, February 1703;
Ross-shire, 1756; Cramond again in December 1769; Hoy Sound, about 1800,
which Low refers to in his ‘ Fauna Orcadensis,’ adding, probably with good
reason, that the species ‘ is often drove ashore about the Orkneys ’ ; Oban,
March 1829; Thurso, July 1863, the skeleton now in the British Museum; and
Loch Scavaig, Skye, in July 1871.8 To these may be added, one at South Uist
in 1897,4 and another in 1901 at Roeness, Shetland,6 a male sixty-one feet long.
1 See the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xxiii. for 1753. 3 Zoologist, 1890, p. 72.
3 Proc. Royal Soc. Edinb. 1871-2, p. 644. 4 Ann. Scot. Nat. H ist. 1897, p. 249.
8 Sir William Turner (Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinb. xxiv. p t v. pp. 423-436 [1903]) gives a full account of this animal. The
lower jaw, teeth, and tympano-petrous bones were secured. The blubber yielded 450 gallons of oil.
The Shetland and Harris whalers soon discovered the presence of these *
Whales during their first season’s work in British Seas. A very large bull of
sixty-eight feet in length and forty feet in circumference was captured near Rona’s
Voe on June 25, 1903, and brought in to the Norrona Station in the Shetlands.1
Four others were seen at the same time.
In 1904 five bulls were killed off the west coast of Harris, and taken to the
Buneveneader Station. They measured, according to Mr. Haldane,2 55, 56, 59, 50,
and 55 feet in length. In 1905 the Olna Station in Shetland took one bull of
58 feet, and the Harris hunters three bulls of 49, 55, and 50 feet, as well as a
cow 57 feet in length, 37 feet in girth— a most unusual size.
The above statistics establish the fact that the Sperm Whale is a regular
summer visitor to the seas north-west of the Hebrides, and that it occasionally
comes near the Shetland coast. It has been stated by some authorities that the
visits of Sperm Whales to the northern waters were merely accidental wanderings
of single bulls; but that this view is erroneous is proved by the observations of
the Fin-whale captains working in Iceland, Faroe, Newfoundland and the British
waters. These men have both seen and killed quite a number of these Whales in
the northern waters, and state that the herds do not consist of bulls only, but of
Whales of both sexes, although males predominate. The capture of such a large
percentage of males is due to the fact that when herds are met with the largest
bulls are at once attacked, after which the rest take to flight.
H abits.— The Sperm Whale can be regarded as a regular visitor, although it is a
species which the reader has little chance of seeing in its natural surroundings;
my notice of its habits will be brief. To Thomas Beale, a pratical anatomist and
surgeon, we owe the first accurate description of the Sperm Whale and its habits
and pursuit. In his classic work8 on the subject he tells us nearly all there is
that is known of the species in a series of observations which subsequent writers
have only confirmed, and to which little has been added. Beale thus describes4
its method of swimming on the surface:
‘ Notwithstanding his enormous size we find that the Sperm Whale has the
power of moving through the water with the greatest ease, and with considerable
velocity. When undisturbed, he passes tranquilly along just below the surface of
1 For the photograph of this the largest Sperm Whale taken in British Seas, I am indebted to Mr. W. J. Gordon.
3 Ann. Scot. Nat. H ist. July 1906, p. 135.
3 A fern observations on the Natural History o f the Sperm Whale, with an account o f the size and progress o f the Fishery
and o f the modes o f pursuing, killing, and ‘ cutting in ' that animal, with a list o f its favourite places o f resort. By Thomas
Beale, surgeon, &c. London, 1835. 4 Ibid. pp. 25-27.