at Sidlesham, and lived for a short time in the Brighton Aquarium1 ; and in
February 1886 another example was caught in a mackerel-net near the Eddystone;
its skeleton is preserved in the Plymouth Museum.“ In September 1887 one
was stranded in the Crouch, Essex.8 In September 1889 six were captured at
Hillswick, in Shetland.* Two were stranded in the Solway in 1892, one on
September 28 and the other on October 17,1 and in 1899 a skull was dredged
up some miles to the east of the Isle of May." In October 1904 one of these
Whales frequented the channel of the Forth near Kincardine for over a fortnight,
and another is said to have been noticed in the same month in the Clyde. On
October 15 some fishermen managed to get the Forth Whale into a sweep-net,
and it is now preserved in the Edinburgh Museum.
Habits.— Very little is known of the habits of Risso’s Grampus. Sir William
Turner ascertained that the specimens captured in the Shetlands had been feeding
upon cuttlefish, for quantities of the horny beaks and undigested skins were found
in their stomachs. The visits of the Whale to our waters appear to be most
general in February, September, and October.
1 Proc.Zool.Soc. 1877, p. 808. * Trans. Plymouth Institute, parts ii. | |r886-87.
3 Laver, Zoologist, 1888, p. 260.
4 Turner, Proc. Phys. Soc. Edin. vol. xi. p. 192 (1891-92). '
* Land and Water, 1892, p. 405 ; Zoologist, 1892, p. 404; Ann. Scot. Nat. H ist. 1893, p. 1.
« Ann. Scot. Nat. H ist. 1899, p. 197-