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4. On the Capture of a Sperm Whale on the Coast of Argyleshire, with a Notice of other Specimens caught on the Coast of Scotland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2014
Extract
In the autumn of last year, whilst spending a few days in the neighbourhood of Oban, I visited Dunstaffnage, and in the courtyard of the Castle saw the two halves of the lower jaw-bone of a sperm-whale. On inquiry, I learned that they were the relics of a whale captured some years ago in the neighbouring sea. From some of the older inhabitants of Oban I gleaned some particulars respecting this animal; and as no record of its capture has as yet found a place in zoological literature, I am induced, as the sperm-whale so very seldom visits our shores, to communicate a brief notice to the Society.
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- Proceedings 1870-71
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- Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1872
References
page 367 note * Auctarium Musæi Balfouriani e Musæo Sibbaldiano: sive Enumeratio et Descriptio Rerum Rariorum, tàm Naturalium, quam Artificialium,. tàm Domesticarum quam Exoticarum: quas Robertus Sibbaldus, M.D. Eques Auratus, Academiæ Edinburgenæ donavit. Edinburgh impressum per Academiæ Typographum, Sumptibus Academiæ, 1697. In this catalogue, under the head “De Piscibus Viviparis Raribus,” the following specimens obtained from this sperm whale are referred to:—A tooth, the crystalline humour of the eye, a fragment of the flesh and skin, and a specimen of spermaceti from the head. “The Sperma Ceti was lodged most of it within the skull of it, which was of a prodigious bigness.”
page 367 note † Mr Small, the Librarian to the University and to the College of Physicians, informs me that the initials “E. W.” are in all probability those of Dr Edward Wright of Kersie who became a Fellow of the College in 1753. His valuable library of works on natural history, of which the copy of the “Phalainologia Nova,” above referred to, formed a part, was presented, in 1761, to the College by Alexander Gibson Wright, Esq. of Cliftonhall.
page 367 note ‡ The “Historia Naturalis,” by Joannes Jonstonus, M.D., was published at Amsterdam in 1657. Book v. De piscibus et cetis, contains a folio plate, tab. 42, on which is represented a great whale, 60 feet long, lying on its right side, and presenting its abdomen, with a large pendulous penis, to the observer. From the form of the head and the shape of the lower jaw it is obviously a sperm whale. The drawing has clearly been made from the animal as it lay on the beach, as the coast line, and numerous figures of persons, either gazing at the whale or on their way to see it, are carefully given. The whole plate has an air of truth and nature which contrasts favourably with the imaginary figures of dragons, mermaids, basilisks, griffins, and unicorns represented in other parts of the work.
page 369 note * Jardine's “Naturalist's Library, Mammalia,” vol. vi. Cetacea. Edinburgh, 1837.
page 369 note † March 10, 1770.