A HISTORY OF KENT crops. Black specimens are not infrequent ; also occasionally some of a sandy and slate colour. A large number of a beautiful white variety existed on Mount Meadow, Cobham. These bred promiscuously with the com- mon coloured variety, but the young ones were usually either the one colour or the other, seldom mingled. UNGULATA 37. Red Deer. Cervus elaphus, Linn. At Wateringbury red deer are iiept for hunting by Mr. Leney's staghounds. Some years ago one was left out on the Cobham Hall estate for several months, and became recognized as a native. 38. Fallow Deer. Cervus dama, Linn. Preserved in several parks, and there are usually outliers which occasionally breed out. The usual colours are : (a) true fallow, {b) mineral, (c) black (very dark backs with no mottling), {/£) white (dingy). The two latter colours are less common than the others, and are not popular ; park keepers are often instructed not to retain them, and conse- quently at the annual selection of fawns for preservation these are left unmarked, to be killed at four to six weeks old, with all super- fluous ones. The others are killed at six years old Although usually kept in enclosed parks and fed in winter with hay, corn, acorns and chestnuts, these animals are con- sidered to be wild, and in a recent case were successfully claimed by an heir-at-law against the legatee of the former owner. CETACEA 39. White-beaked Bottle-nose. Lagenorhyn- chus albirostris. Gray. Has been recorded from Folkestone and Ramsgate ; several ascended the Colne in September 1889. 40. Common Dolphin. Delphinus delphis, Linn. One specimen was secured at Heme Bay in 1868, and purchased by the late Frank Buck- land. 41. Bottle-nose Dolphin. Tursiops tursio, Fabr. Male, female and young occurred in the Blackwater in 1878. 42. Common Porpoise. Phocana communis, Linn. Common round the coast and in the Thames estuary. 43. Killer. Orca gladiator. Gray. A specimen measuring 31 ft. was killed at Greenwich in 1793, and, according to Murie, others have been taken in the Blackwater. 44. Pilot Whale. Globicephalus melas, Traill. A skull from the mouth of the Thames (purchased in 1858), is preserved in the British Museum. 45. Beaked Whale. Hyperoodon rostratus, Miill. The skeleton of an adult female, captured at Whitstable in i860, is preserved in the British Museum. Large specimens, over 25 ft. long, appeared at the mouth of the Thames in July 1891, and were brought ashore at Leigh and Barking Creek. 46. Cachalot, or Sperm Whale. Physeter macrocephalus, Linn. Over a century ago, on two separate occasions, a number of these enormous cetaceans — the species attaining a length of 30 to 80 ft. — were cast ashore dead, after a storm, on the Kentish and Essex coasts. One alive even got up the Thames to as far as the Lower Hope. In 1829, one 62 ft. long was secured by the Whitstable fishermen, and in August 1898 another 42^ ft. in length, went ashore at Birchington. 47. Common Rorqual or Fin-Whale. Balie- noptera physetus, Linn, {musculus, Linn.). Several times recorded from the Thames. In June 1658, one 60 ft. long was killed at Greenwich. The latest appearance of this whale was in November 1899, when a fully adult couple was observed between the Albert Docks and Barking Creek. 48. Lesser Rorqual. Balcenoptera rostrata Fabr. Also several times recorded from the mouth of the Thames. A female 17 ft. long was killed in the Blackwater in September 1900. 49. Rudolphi's Rorqual. Balanoptera borealis. Less. One specimen, 35 ft. long, was stranded outside Tilbury Dock in October 1887, and a second was captured at GiUingham in the Medway in August 1888. 306
