Page:The Geologist, volume 5.djvu/125

Rh some remains of a sailor. A fine species of ziphioid cetacean known to science under the name of Delphinorhyncus micropterus, or oftener as Mesoplodon Sowerbiensis, was stranded some years since near the port of Ostend. It still uttered groans when M. Paret, the naturalist of Slykens, arrived on the spot. This animal, rare everywhere, and of which but one complete skeleton was known, has furnished the subject of a fine memoir by our illustrious confrère M. du Mortier. . . . Another species of the family of Ziphioids, which visits regularly the Feroe Isles, shows itself sometimes on our coasts. An individual was taken some years since, at Bergoluis, near Zierickzee, and described by M. Wesmael. It is the Dögling, or the Hyperoodon of naturalists. A whole band was lost last year after bad weather on the coast of Jutland. It is this family of cetaceans which was most largely represented in the Crag Sea, and on this score it interests us in an especial manner. The porpoise is the only cetacean proper to our littoral; and we are still ignorant if it be sedentary during the whole year on our coasts, or if it visits regularly other latitudes. Every year at spring-time porpoises enter the Baltic by the Sound in the pursuit of herrings, and they only go out again in December and January by the Little Belt, between Fionie and Jutland. As we find them on our coasts oftener in summer than in winter, it is evident that our common cetacean does not belong to those which take up their summer quarters in the Baltic.

We do not dwell on the whales in ancient times stranded in our latitudes. There is too much exaggeration in the statements of authors.

"We shall only mention the cachelot or potwall, which has appeared several times some centuries ago in our latitudes, and of which Ambroise Paré has given a very recognizable figure.