Key Events & Deaths on this day in Northern Ireland Troubles
26th January
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Sunday 26 January 1969
William Morgan, then Minister of Health and Social Services, resigned from the Northern Ireland government
Thursday 26 March 1970
The Police (Northern Ireland) Act became law. The act provided for the disarmament of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the establishment of an RUC reserve force. The Act established the Police Authority of Northern Ireland (PANI) which was meant to contain representatives from across the community.
[None of the main Nationalist parties have ever taken part in the PANI.]
Thursday 26 January 1984
The Hennessy Report, into the mass escape of 38 Republican prisoners from the Maze Prison on 25 September 1983, was published. Most of the responsibility for the escape was placed on prison staff. James Prior, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, stated that there would be no ministerial resignations as a result of the report.
Tuesday 26 January 1988
James Molyneaux, then leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and Ian Paisley, then leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) met with Tom King, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and proposed a form of devolved administration for Northern Ireland. The system proposed involved committees with chairpersons being decided on party strength.
Thursday 26 January 1989
The report of an independent inquiry into the claims made in the Thames Television documentary Death on the Rock vindicated the programme. Margaret Thatcher, then British Prime Minister, criticised the report.
Saturday 26 January 1991
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) carried out a raid on the premises of An Phoblacht (Republican News) in west Belfast. The RUC removed computer equipment and computer disks from the building.
Monday 26 January 1998
UDP Expelled From Talks
The multi-party talks switched venue from Stormont in Belfast to Lancaster House in London in an attempt to inject impetus to the search for a political settlement.
However, following the revelation that the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), a cover name (pseudonym) used by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), had been involved in the killing of (at least) three Catholics in the previous couple of weeks there were calls for the expulsion of the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) which is politically associated with the UDA / UFF.
The British and Irish governments, at the insistence of some of the other political parties, took the final decision to expel the UDP. By this time the UDP had already left the talks venue. The two governments issued a document on UDP participation. This indicated that the UDP could re-enter the talks process if the UFF maintained its renewed ceasefire.
[Marjorie (Mo) Mowlam, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, revealed that she knew on 12 January 1998 of the UFF’s breach of its ceasefire. Mowlam must have been informed of this by Ronnie Flanagan, then Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). Flanagan only made the information public on 22 January 1998. Immediately after the UFF was named as being responsible it called a renewed ceasefire. During the 10 day delay in making the announcement public three Catholic civilians were killed by Loyalist paramilitaries.]
The funeral of Liam Conway, shot dead by the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), took place in Donaghmore, County Tyrone. His blind brother helped carry the coffin.
It was revealed that a member of a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) patrol in Derry pointed a gun at a Catholic security man outside a night club and fired a blank bullet. [This incident
Tuesday 26 January 1999
A Catholic family who have lived for 42 years on a mainly Protestant estate near Carrickfergus, County Antrim, discovered a pipe-bomb beside their car. The Red Hand Defenders (RHD) later claimed responsibility. The family said they were shocked at the attack.
[In 2001 it became apparent that RHD was a cover name used by both the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).]
Marjorie (Mo) Mowlam, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, published draft legislation that defined the departmental structures in the Northern Ireland Assembly. John McFall, then Education Minister, announced a school building programme of over £67 million.
Friday 26 January 2001
There was a pipe-bomb attack in Ballymoney. It took place in the same housing estate where the Quinn children were killed on 12 July 1998. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) said it could not rule out a sectarian motive for the attack. There were pipe-bomb attacks on the homes of two Catholic families in the Waterside area of Derry. The two families were related.
[Only one of the devices was found at the time, the remains of the second device was discovered on Sunday 28 January 2001.]
The attacks were carried out by Loyalist paramilitaries.
Saturday 26 January 2002
Gerry Adams, then President of Sinn Féin (SF), said that he agreed in principle that the Omagh bombers should be brought to justice. However he stated that the real issue was how the police had dealt with the information already in its possession. Adams said that people would make their own judgement on whether information should be passed to the police and that many would see it as “a moral issue” (BBC, ‘Inside Politics’).
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Remembering all innocent victims of the Troubles
Today is the anniversary of the death of the following people killed as a results of the conflict in Northern Ireland
“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die
– Thomas Campbell
To the innocent on the list – Your memory will live forever
– To the Paramilitaries –
There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, but nothing worth killing for.
6 People lost their lives on the 26th January between 1972– 1992
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26 January 1972 Peter McNulty, (47)
Catholic Status: Irish Republican Army (IRA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed in premature bomb explosion during attack on Castlewellan Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) base, County Down.
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26 January 1974
John Rodgers, (50)
Protestant Status: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Shot while on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) foot patrol, Antrim Road, Glengormley, near Belfast, County Antrim.
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26 January 1975
Edward Wilson, (16)
Protestant Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Air Cadet. Killed by booby trap bomb at Air Training Corps premises, Old Cavehill Road, Belfast.
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26 January 1980 Errol Pryce, (21)
nfNI
Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Shot by sniper while on British Army (BA) foot patrol, Whiterock Road, Ballymurphy, Belfast
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26 January 1987
George Shaw, (57)
Protestant Status: Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Off duty. Shot outside his home, Coalisland Road, Dungannon, County Tyrone
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26 January 1992 John McIvor, (36)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: non-specific Loyalist group (LOY)
Found stabbed to death, in the toilets of Liverpool Supporters’ Social Club, Templemore Avenue, Belfast.
Sperm whale deaths: Fifth whale washes up in Lincolnshire
A fifth sperm whale has washed up on the east coast of England.
It follows the death of a beached whale in Hunstanton, Norfolk, on Friday and the discovery of three carcasses near Skegness over the weekend.
The sperm whales are believed to be from a pod spotted off the Norfolk coast.
The fifth whale was found at Wainfleet, Lincolnshire, on Monday afternoon, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency reported.
It was found on the site of a former bombing range, and warnings have been issued for people to stay away.
The Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust tweeted: “There is no public access to the area and it is extremely dangerous with tidal creeks and the potential for unexploded ordinance. Many of the lanes to the marshes are private and not accessible.”
Sperm whale deaths: Fifth whale washed up in Lincolnshire
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Marine biologists were using a probe to examine one of the Skegness whales earlier on Monday when there was a “huge blast of air”, said BBC reporter David Sykes.
Mature males average 16 metres (52 ft) in length but some may reach 20.5 metres (67 ft), with the head representing up to one-third of the animal’s length. The sperm whale feeds primarily on squid. Plunging to 2,250 metres (7,382 ft) for prey, it is the second deepest diving mammal, following only the Cuvier’s beaked whale.[9] The sperm whale’s clicking vocalization, a form of echolocation and communication, may be as loud as 230 decibels (re 1 µPa at 1 m) underwater.[10] It has the largest brain of any animal on Earth, more than five times heavier than a human’s. Sperm whales can live for more than 60 years.[11]
The sperm whale can be found anywhere in the open ocean. Females and young males live together in groups while mature males live solitary lives outside of the mating season. The females cooperate to protect and nurse their young. Females give birth every four to twenty years, and care for the calves for more than a decade. A mature sperm whale has few natural predators. Calves and weakened adults are taken by pods of orcas.
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SPERM WHALES ‘ADOPT’ DEFORMED DOLPHIN
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From the early eighteenth century through the late 20th, the species was a prime target of whalers. The head of the whale contains a liquid wax called spermaceti, from which the whale derives its name. Spermaceti was used in lubricants, oil lamps, and candles. Ambergris, a waste product from its digestive system, is still used as a fixative in perfumes. Occasionally the sperm whale’s great size allowed it to defend itself effectively against whalers. The species is now protected by a whaling moratorium, and is currently listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).
Taxonomy and naming
Etymology
The name sperm whale is a clip of spermaceti whale. Spermaceti, originally mistakenly identified as the whales’ semen, is the semi-liquid, waxy substance found within the whale’s head (see below).[12] The sperm whale is also known as the “cachalot”, which is thought to derive from the archaic French for “tooth” or “big teeth”, as preserved for example in cachau in the Gascon dialect (a word of either Romance[13] or Basque[14] origin). The etymological dictionary of Corominas says the origin is uncertain, but it suggests that it comes from the Vulgar Latincappula, plural of cappulum, “sword hilt”.[15] The word cachalot came to English via French from Spanish or Portuguese cachalote, perhaps from Galician/Portuguese cachola, “big head”.[16] The term is retained in the Russian word for the animal, кашалот (kashalot), as well as in many other languages.
The scientific genus name Physeter comes from Greekphysētēr (φυσητήρ), meaning “blowpipe, blowhole (of a whale)”, or – as a pars pro toto – “whale”. The specific namemacrocephalus is Latinized from the Greek makrokephalos (μακροκέφαλος, meaning “big-headed”), from makros (μακρός, “large”) + kefalos (κέφαλος, “head”).
Its synonymous specific name catodon means “down-tooth”, from the Greek elements cat(a)- (“below”) and odṓn (“tooth”); so named because it has visible teeth only in its lower jaw.[17] (See: Teeth) Another synonym australasianus (“Australasian“) was applied to sperm whales in the southern hemisphere.[18]
Taxonomy
The sperm whale belongs to the orderCetartiodactyla,[19][20][21][22][23] the order containing all cetaceans and even-toed ungulates. It is a member of the unranked clade Cetacea, with all the whales, dolphins, and porpoises, and further classified into Odontoceti, containing all the toothed whales and dolphins. It is the sole extant species of its genus, Physeter, in the family Physeteridae. Two species of the related extant genus Kogia, the pygmy sperm whaleKogia breviceps and the dwarf sperm whaleK. simus, are placed either in this family or in the family Kogiidae.[24] In some taxonomic schemes the families Kogiidae and Physeteridae are combined as the superfamily Physeteroidea (see the separate entry on the sperm whale family).[25]
The sperm whale is one of the species originally described by Linnaeus in 1758 in his eighteenth century work, Systema Naturae. He recognised four species in the genus Physeter.[26] Experts soon realised that just one such species exists, although there has been debate about whether this should be named P. catodon or P. macrocephalus, two of the names used by Linnaeus. Both names are still used, although most recent authors now accept macrocephalus as the valid name, limiting catodon’s status to a lesser synonym.[b]
The sperm whale is the largest toothed whale, with adult males measuring up to 20.5 metres (67 ft) long and weighing up to 57,000 kilograms (56 long tons; 63 short tons).[35][36] By contrast, the second largest toothed whale, Baird’s Beaked Whale measures 12.8 metres (42 ft) and weighs up to 15 short tons (14,000 kg).[37] The Nantucket Whaling Museum has a 5.5 metres (18 ft)-long jawbone. The museum claims that this individual was 24 metres (80 ft) long; the whale that sank the Essex (one of the incidents behind Moby-Dick) was claimed to be 26 metres (85 ft). A similar size is reported from a jawbone from the British Natural History Museum. A 67-foot specimen is reported from a Soviet whaling fleet near the Kurile Islands in 1950.[38][39] There is disagreement on the claims of adult males approaching or exceeding 24 metres (80 ft) in length.[40]
Extensive whaling may have decreased their size, as males were highly sought, primarily after World War II.[39] Today, males do not usually exceed 18.3 metres (60 ft) in length or 51,000 kilograms (50 long tons; 56 short tons) in weight.[34] Another view holds that exploitation by overwhaling had virtually no effect on the size of the bull sperm whales, and their size may have actually increased in current times on the basis of density dependent effects.[41]
It is among the most sexually dimorphic of all cetaceans. At birth both sexes are about the same size,[34] but mature males are typically 30% to 50% longer and three times as massive as females.[35]
Unusual among cetaceans, the sperm whale’s blowhole is highly skewed to the left of the head
The sperm whale’s unique body is unlikely to be confused with any other species. The sperm whale’s distinctive shape comes from its very large, block-shaped head, which can be one-quarter to one-third of the animal’s length. The S-shaped blowhole is located very close to the front of the head and shifted to the whale’s left.[35] This gives rise to a distinctive bushy, forward-angled spray.
The sperm whale’s flukes (tail lobes) are triangular and very thick. Proportionally, they are larger than that of any other cetacean, and are very flexible.[42] The whale lifts its flukes high out of the water as it begins a feeding dive.[35] It has a series of ridges on the back’s caudal third instead of a dorsal fin. The largest ridge was called the ‘hump’ by whalers, and can be mistaken for a dorsal fin because of its shape and size.[34]
In contrast to the smooth skin of most large whales, its back skin is usually wrinkly and has been likened to a prune by whale-watching enthusiasts.[43]Albinos have been reported.[44][45][46]
Skeleton
Sperm whale skeleton
The ribs are bound to the spine by flexible cartilage, which allows the ribcage to collapse rather than snap under high pressure.[47] While sperm whales are well adapted to diving, repeated dives to great depths have long-term effects. Bones show the same pitting that signals decompression sickness in humans. Older skeletons showed the most extensive pitting, whereas calves showed no damage. This damage may indicate that sperm whales are susceptible to decompression sickness, and sudden surfacing could be lethal to them.[48]
Like all cetaceans, the spine of the sperm whale has reduced zygapophysial joints, of which the remnants are modified and are positioned higher on the vertebral dorsal spinous process, hugging it laterally, to prevent extensive lateral bending and facilitate more dorso-ventral bending. These evolutionary modifications make the spine more flexible but weaker than the spines of terrestrial vertebrates.[49]
As with other toothed whales, the skull of the sperm whale is asymmetrical so as to aid echolocation. Sound waves that strike the whale from different directions will not be channeled in the same way.[50] Within the basin of the cranium, the openings of the bony narial tubes (from which the nasal passages spring) are skewed towards the left side of the skull.
Jaws and teeth
The lower jaw is long and narrow. The teeth fit into sockets along the upper jaw.
The sperm whale’s lower jaw is very narrow and underslung.[51] The sperm whale has 18 to 26 teeth on each side of its lower jaw which fit into sockets in the upper jaw.[51] The teeth are cone-shaped and weigh up to 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) each.[52] The teeth are functional, but do not appear to be necessary for capturing or eating squid, as well-fed animals have been found without teeth or even with deformed jaws. One hypothesis is that the teeth are used in aggression between males.[53] Mature males often show scars which seem to be caused by the teeth. Rudimentary teeth are also present in the upper jaw, but these rarely emerge into the mouth.[54] Analyzing the teeth is the preferred method for determining a whale’s age. Like the age-rings in a tree, the teeth build distinct layers of cementum and dentine as they grow.[55]
Brain
The sperm whale’s brain is the largest in the world, five times heavier than a human’s.
The brain is the largest known of any modern or extinct animal, weighing on average about 7.8 kilograms (17 lb),[56][57] more than five times heavier than a human’s, and has a volume of about 8,000 cm3.[58] Although larger brains generally correlate with higher intelligence, it is not the only factor. Elephants and dolphins also have larger brains than humans.[59] The sperm whale has a lower encephalization quotient than many other whale and dolphin species, lower than that of non-human anthropoid apes, and much lower than humans‘.[57][60]
The sperm whale’s cerebrum is the largest in all mammalia, both in absolute and relative terms. The olfactory system is reduced, suggesting that the sperm whale has a poor sense of taste and smell. By contrast, the auditory system is enlarged. The pyramidal tract is poorly developed, reflecting the reduction of its limbs.[61]
Biological systems
The sperm whale respiratory system has adapted to cope with drastic pressure changes when diving. The flexible ribcage allows lung collapse, reducing nitrogen intake, and metabolism can decrease to conserve oxygen.[62][63] Between dives, the sperm whale surfaces to breathe for about eight minutes before diving again.[35] Odontoceti (toothed whales) breathe air at the surface through a single, S-shaped blowhole, which is extremely skewed to the left. Sperm whales spout (breathe) 3–5 times per minute at rest, increasing to 6–7 times per minute after a dive. The blow is a noisy, single stream that rises up to 2 metres (6.6 ft) or more above the surface and points forward and left at a 45° angle.[64] On average, females and juveniles blow every 12.5 seconds before dives, while large males blow every 17.5 seconds before dives.[65] A sperm whale killed 160 km (100 mi) south of Durban, South Africa after a 1-hour, 50-minute dive was found with two dogfish (Scymnodon sp.), usually found at the sea floor, in its belly.[66]
The sperm whale has the longest intestinal system in the world,[67] exceeding 300 m in larger specimens.[68][69]The sperm whale has four stomachs. The first secretes no gastric juices and has very thick muscular walls to crush the food (since whales cannot chew) and resist the claw and sucker attacks of swallowed squid. The second stomach is larger and is where digestion takes place. Undigested squid beaks accumulate in the second stomach – as many as 18,000 have been found in some dissected specimens.[68][70][71] Most squid beaks are vomited by the whale, but some occasionally make it to the hindgut. Such beaks precipitate the formation of ambergris.[71]
The arterial system of a sperm whale foetus.
In 1959, the heart of a 22 metric tons (24 short tons) male taken by whalers was measured to be 116 kilograms (256 lb), about 0.5% of its total mass.[72] The circulatory system has a number of specific adaptations for the aquatic environment. The diameter of the aortic arch increases as it leaves the heart. This bulbous expansion acts as a windkessel, ensuring a steady blood flow as the heart rate slows during diving.[73] The arteries that leave the aortic arch are positioned symmetrically. There is no costocervical artery. There is no direct connection between the internal carotid artery and the vessels of the brain.[74] Their circulatory system has adapted to dive at great depths, as much as 2,250 metres (7,382 ft).[9]Myoglobin, which stores oxygen in muscle tissue, is much more abundant than in terrestrial animals.[75] The blood has a high density of red blood cells, which contain oxygen-carrying haemoglobin. The oxygenated blood can be directed towards only the brain and other essential organs when oxygen levels deplete.[76][77][78] The spermaceti organ may also play a role by adjusting buoyancy (see below).[79] The arterial retia mirabilia are extraordinarily well-developed. The complex arterial retia mirabilia of the sperm whale are more extensive and larger than those of any other cetacean.[74]
Anatomy of the sperm whale’s head. The organs above the jaw are devoted to sound generation.
Atop the whale’s skull is positioned a large complex of organs filled with a liquid mixture of fats and waxes called spermaceti. The purpose of this complex is to generate powerful and focused clicking sounds, which the sperm whale uses for echolocation and communication.[80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][89][90]
The spermaceti organ is like a large barrel of spermaceti. Its surrounding wall, known as the case, is extremely tough and fibrous. The case can hold within it up to 1,900 litres of spermaceti.[91] It is proportionately larger in males.[92] This oil is a mixture of triglycerides and wax esters. The proportion of wax esters in the spermaceti organ increases with the age of the whale: 38–51% in calves, 58–87% in adult females, and 71–94% in adult males.[93] The spermaceti at the core of the organ has a higher wax content than the outer areas.[94] The speed of sound in spermaceti is 2,684 m/s (at 40 kHz, 36 °C), making it nearly twice as fast as in the oil in a dolphin’s melon.[95] Below the spermaceti organ lies the “junk” (so-called because many whalers dismissed this part as a worthwhile source of oil), which consists of compartments of spermaceti separated by cartilage. It is analogous to the melon found in other toothed whales.
Running through the head are two air passages. The left passage runs alongside the spermaceti organ and goes directly to the blowhole, whilst the right passage runs underneath the spermaceti organ and passes air through a pair of phonic lips and into the distal sac at the very front of the nose. The distal sac is connected to the blowhole and the terminus of the left passage. When the whale is submerged, it can close the blowhole, and air that passes through the phonic lips can circulate back to the lungs. The sperm whale, unlike other odontocetes, has only one pair of phonic lips, whereas all other toothed whales have two,[96] and it is located at the front of the nose instead of behind the melon.
At the posterior end of this spermaceti complex is the frontal sac, which covers the concave surface of the cranium. The posterior wall of the frontal sac is covered with fluid–filled knobs, which are about 4–13 mm in diameter and separated by narrow grooves. The anterior wall is smooth. The knobbly surface reflects sound waves that come through the spermaceti organ from the phonic lips. The grooves between the knobs trap a film of air that is consistent whatever the orientation or depth of the whale, making it an excellent sound mirror.[95]
The spermaceti organs may also help adjust the whale’s buoyancy. It is hypothesized that before the whale dives, cold water enters the organ, and it is likely that the blood vessels constrict, reducing blood flow, and, hence, temperature. The wax therefore solidifies and reduces in volume.[79][97] The increase in specific density generates a down force of about 392 newtons (88 lbf) and allows the whale to dive with less effort.[citation needed] During the hunt, oxygen consumption, together with blood vessel dilation, produces heat and melts the spermaceti, increasing its buoyancy and enabling easy surfacing.[98] However, more recent work[84] have found many problems with this theory including the lack of anatomical structures for the actual heat exchange.[99]
Herman Melville‘s fictional story Moby Dick suggests that the “case” containing the spermaceti serves as a battering ram for use in fights between males.[100] Apart from a few famous instances such as the well-documented sinking of the ships Essex and Ann Alexander by attackers estimated to weigh only one-fifth as much as the ships, this hypothesis is not well supported in current scientific literature.[101]
The phonic lips.
The frontal sac, exposed. Its surface is covered with fluid-filled knobs.
A piece of the posterior wall of the frontal sac. The grooves between the knobs trap a consistent film of air, making it an excellent sound mirror.[95]
Like other toothed whales, the sperm whale can retract its eyes.
The sperm whale’s eye does not differ greatly from those of other toothed whales except in size. It is the largest among the toothed whales, weighing about 170 g. It is overall ellipsoid in shape, compressed along the visual axis, measuring about 7×7×3 cm. The cornea is elliptical and the lens is spherical. The sclera is very hard and thick, roughly 1 cm anteriorly and 3 cm posteriorly. There are no ciliary muscles. The choroid is very thick and contains a fibrous tapetum lucidum. Like other toothed whales, the sperm whale can retract and protrude its eyes thanks to a 2-cm-thick retractor muscle attached around the eye at the equator.[102]
According to Fristrup and Harbison (2002),[103] sperm whales eyes afford good vision and sensitivity to light. They conjectured that sperm whales use vision to hunt squid, either by detecting silhouettes from below or by detecting bioluminescence. If sperm whales detect silhouettes, Fristrup and Harbison suggested that they hunt upside down, allowing them to use the forward parts of the ventral visual fields for binocular vision.
Sleeping
For some time researchers have been aware that pods of sperm whales may sleep for short periods, assuming a vertical position with their heads just below or at the surface. A 2008 study published in Current Biology recorded evidence that whales may sleep with both sides of the brain. It appears that some whales may fall into a deep sleep for about 7 percent of the time, most often between 6 p.m. and midnight.[104]
Genetics
Sperm whales have 21 pairs of chromosomes (2n=42).[105] The genome of live whales can be examined by recovering shed skin.[106]
Vocalization complex
Mechanism
When echolocating, the sperm whale emits a directionally focused beam of broadband clicks. Clicks are generated by forcing air through a pair of phonic lips (also known as “monkey lips” or “museau de singe”) at the front end of the nose, just below the blowhole. The sound then travels backwards along the length of the nose through the spermaceti organ. Most of the sound energy is then reflected off the frontal sac at the cranium and into the melon, whose lens-like structure focuses it.[81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88] Some of the sound will reflect back into the spermaceti organ and back towards the front of the whale’s nose, where it will be reflected through the spermaceti organ a third time. This back and forth reflection which happens on the scale of a few milliseconds creates a multi-pulse click structure.[107] This multi-pulse click structure allows researchers to measure the whale’s spermaceti organ using only the sound of its clicks. [108][109] Because the IPI of a sperm whale’s click is related to the length of the sound producing organ, an individual whale’s click is unique to that individual. However, if the whale matures and the size of the spermaceti organ increases, the tone of the whale’s click will also change.[109] The lower jaw is the primary reception path for the echoes. A continuous fat-filled canal transmits received sounds to the inner ear.[110]
The source of the air forced through the phonic lips is the right nasal passage. While the left nasal passage opens to the blow hole, the right nasal passage has evolved to supply air to the phonic lips. It is thought that the nostrils of the land-based ancestor of the sperm whale migrated through evolution to their current functions, the left nostril becoming the blowhole and the right nostril becoming the phonic lips.[111]
Air that passes through the phonic lips passes into the distal sac, then back down through the left nasal passage. This recycling of air allows the whale to continuously generate clicks for as long as it is submerged.[112]
Types of vocalization
A creak is a rapid series of high-frequency clicks that sounds somewhat like a creaky door hinge. It is typically used when homing in on prey.[113]
A coda is a short pattern of 3 to 20 clicks that is used in social situations. They were once thought to be a way by which individuals identified themselves, but individuals have been observed producing multiple codas, and the same codas are used by multiple individuals.[114] However, each click contains a physical signature which suggests that clicks can be used to identify individuals.[80] Geographically separate pods exhibit distinct dialects.[115] Large males are generally solitary and rarely produce codas.[114] In breeding grounds, codas are almost entirely produced by adult females. Despite evidence that sperm whales share similar codas, it is still unknown whether sperm whales possess individually specific coda repertoires or whether individuals make codas at different rates.[116]
Slow clicks are heard only in the presence of males (it is not certain whether females occasionally make them). Males make a lot of slow clicks in breeding grounds (74% of the time), both near the surface and at depth, which suggests they are primarily mating signals. Outside breeding grounds, slow clicks are rarely heard, and usually near the surface.[117]
Sperm whales are among the most cosmopolitan species. They prefer ice-free waters over 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) deep.[2] Although both sexes range through temperate and tropical oceans and seas, only adult males populate higher latitudes.[44]
They are relatively abundant from the poles to the equator and are found in all the oceans. They inhabit the Mediterranean Sea, but not the Black Sea,[34] while its presence in the Red Sea is uncertain.[2] The shallow entrances to both the Black Sea and the Red Sea may account for their absence.[118] The Black Sea’s lower layers are also anoxic and contain high concentrations of sulphur compounds such as hydrogen sulphide.[119]
Grown males are known to enter surprisingly shallow bays to rest (whales will be in state of rest during these occasions). There are unique, coastal groups reported from various areas such as Scotland,[128] Shiretoko Peninsula, off Kaikoura, in Davao Gulf, and so on.
Diet
A piece of sperm whale skin with giant squid sucker scars
Sperm whales usually dive between 300 to 800 metres (980 to 2,620 ft), and sometimes 1 to 2 kilometres (3,300 to 6,600 ft), in search of food.[129] Such dives can last more than an hour.[129] They feed on several species, notably the giant squid, but also the colossal squid, octopuses, and fish like demersalrays, but their diet is mainly medium-sized squid.[130] Some prey may be taken accidentally while eating other items.[130] Most of what is known about deep sea squid has been learned from specimens in captured sperm whale stomachs, although more recent studies analysed feces. One study, carried out around the Galápagos, found that squid from the genera Histioteuthis (62%), Ancistrocheirus (16%), and Octopoteuthis (7%) weighing between 12 and 650 grams (0.026 and 1.433 lb) were the most commonly taken.[131] Battles between sperm whales and giant squid or colossal squid have never been observed by humans; however, white scars are believed to be caused by the large squid. One study published in 2010 collected evidence that suggests that female sperm whales may collaborate when hunting Humboldt squid.[132] Tagging studies have shown that sperm whales hunt upside down at the bottom of their deep dives. It is suggested that the whales can see the squid silhouetted above them against the dim surface light.[133]
An older study, examining whales captured by the New Zealand whaling fleet in the Cook Strait region, found a 1.69:1 ratio of squid to fish by weight.[134] Sperm whales sometimes take sablefish and toothfish from long lines. Long-line fishing operations in the Gulf of Alaska complain that sperm whales take advantage of their fishing operations to eat desirable species straight off the line, sparing the whales the need to hunt.[135] However, the amount of fish taken is very little compared to what the sperm whale needs per day. Video footage has been captured of a large male sperm whale “bouncing” a long line, to gain the fish.[136] Sperm whales are believed to prey on the megamouth shark, a rare and large deep-sea species discovered in the 1970s.[137] In one case, three sperm whales were observed attacking or playing with a megamouth.[138]
The sharp beak of a consumed squid lodged in the whale’s intestine may lead to the production of ambergris, analogous to the production of pearls.[139] The irritation of the intestines caused by squid beaks stimulates the secretion of this lubricant-like substance. Sperm whales are prodigious feeders and eat around 3% of their body weight per day. The total annual consumption of prey by sperm whales worldwide is estimated to be about 91 million tonnes (100 million short tons).[140] In comparison, human consumption of seafood is estimated to be 115 million tonnes (127 million short tons).[141]
Sperm whales hunt through echolocation. Their clicks are among the most powerful sounds in the animal kingdom (see above). It has been hypothesised that it can stun prey with its clicks. Experimental studies attempting to duplicate this effect have been unable to replicate the supposed injuries, casting doubt on this idea.[142]
It has been stated that sperm whales, as well as other large cetaceans, help fertilise the surface of the ocean by consuming nutrients in the depths and transporting those nutrients to the oceans’ surface when they defecate, an effect known as the whale pump.[143] This fertilises phytoplankton and other plants on the surface of the ocean and contributes to ocean productivity and the drawdown of atmospheric carbon.[144]
Sperm whales can live 70 years or more.[34][44][145] They are a prime example of a species that has been K-selected, meaning their reproductive strategy is associated with stable environmental conditions and comprises a low birth rate, significant parental aid to offspring, slow maturation, and high longevity.[35]
How they choose mates has not been definitively determined. Males will fight with each other over females, and males will mate with multiple females, making them polygynous, but they do not dominate the group like a harem.[146][147] Males do not provide paternal care to their offspring.[148]
Females become fertile at around 9 years of age.[149] The oldest pregnant female ever recorded was 41 years old.[150]Gestation requires 14 to 16 months, producing a single calf.[34] Sexually mature females give birth once every 4 to 20 years (pregnancy rates were higher during the whaling era).[149] Birth is a social event, as the mother and calf need others to protect them from predators. The other adults may jostle and bite the newborn in its first hours.[151]
Lactation proceeds for 19 to 42 months, but calves, rarely, may suckle up to 13 years.[34] Like other whales, the sperm whale’s milk has a higher fat content than that of terrestrial mammals: about 36%,[152] compared to 4% in cow milk. This gives it a consistency similar to cottage cheese,[153] which prevents it from dissolving in the water before the calf can eat it.[154] It has an energy content of roughly 3,840 kcal/kg,[152] compared to just 640 kcal/kg in cow milk.[155] Calves may be allowed to suckle from females other than their mothers.[34]
Males become sexually mature at 18 years. Upon reaching sexual maturity, males move to higher latitudes, where the water is colder and feeding is more productive. Females remain at lower latitudes.[34] Males reach their full size at about age 50.[35]
Social behaviour
Relations within the species
Sperm whales adopt the “marguerite formation” to defend a vulnerable pod member.
Adult males who are not breeding live solitary lives, whereas females and juvenile males live together in groups. The main driving force for the sexual segregation of adult sperm whales is scramble competition for mesopelagic squid.[156] Females and their young remain in groups,[35] while mature males leave their “natal unit” somewhere between 4 and 21 years of age. Mature males sometimes form loose bachelor groups with other males of similar age and size.[35] As males grow older, they typically live solitary lives.[35] Mature males have beached themselves together, suggesting a degree of cooperation which is not yet fully understood.[35] The whales rarely, if ever, leave their group.[157]
A social unit is a group of sperm whales who live and travel together over a period of years. Individuals rarely, if ever, join or leave a social unit. There is a huge variance in the size of social units. They are most commonly between six and nine individuals in size but can have more than twenty.[158] Unlike orcas, sperm whales within a social unit show no significant tendency to associate with their genetic relatives.[159] Females and calves spend about three quarters of their time foraging and a quarter of their time socializing. Socializing usually takes place in the afternoon.[160]
When sperm whales socialize, they emit complex patterns of clicks called codas. They will spend much of the time rubbing against each other. Tracking of diving whales suggests that groups engage in herding of prey, similar to bait balls created by other species, though the research needs to be confirmed by tracking the prey.[161][162]
Relations with other species
The most common natural predator of sperm whales is the orca, but pilot whales and false killer whales sometimes harass them.[163][164] Orcas prey on target groups of females with young, usually making an effort to extract and kill a calf. The adults will protect their calves or an injured adult by encircling them. They may face inwards with their tails out (the ‘marguerite formation’, named after the flower). The heavy and powerful tail of an adult whale can deliver lethal blows.[165] Alternatively, they may face outwards (the ‘heads-out formation’). Early whalers exploited this behaviour, attracting a whole unit by injuring one of its members.[166] If the orca pod is extremely large, its members may sometimes be able to kill adult female sperm whales. Solitary mature males are known to interfere and come to the aid of vulnerable groups nearby.[167] Individual large mature male sperm whales have no non-human predators, and are believed to be too large, powerful and aggressive to be threatened by orcas.[168] In addition, male sperm whales have been observed to attack and intimidate orca pods. An incident was filmed from a long-line trawler: an orca pod was systematically taking fish caught on the trawler’s long lines (as the lines were being pulled into the ship) when a male sperm whale appeared to repeatedly charge the orca pod in an attempt to drive them away; it was speculated by the film crew that the sperm whale was attempting to access the same fish. The orcas employed a tail outward and tail slapping defensive position against the bull sperm whale similar to that used by female sperm whales against attacking orcas.[169]
Sperm whales are not known for forging bonds with other species, but it was observed that a bottlenose dolphin with spinal deformity had been accepted into a pod of sperm whales.[170] They are known to swim alongside other cetaceans such as humpback,[171]fin, minke, pilot,[172] and orca whales on occasion.[173]
Fossil sperm whales differ from modern sperm whales in tooth count and the shape of the face and jaws.[178] For example, Scaldicetus had a tapered rostrum.[179] Genera from the Oligocene and early and middle Miocene, with the possible exception of Aulophyseter, had teeth in their upper jaws.[178]Acrophyseter, from the late Miocene, also had teeth in both the upper and lower jaws as well as a short rostrum and an upward curving mandible (lower jaw).[25] These anatomical differences suggest that fossil species may not have necessarily been deep-sea squid eaters like the modern sperm whale, but that some genera mainly ate fish.[178]Zygophyseter, dated from the middle to late Miocene and found in southern Italy, had teeth in both jaws and appears to have been adapted to feed on large prey, rather like the modern Orca (Killer Whale). Other fossil sperm whales with adaptations similar to this are collectively known as killer sperm whales.[175]
Phylogeny
The traditional view has been that Mysticeti (baleen whales) and Odontoceti (toothed whales) arose from more primitive whales early in the Oligocene period, and that the super-family Physeteroidea, which contains the sperm whale, dwarf sperm whale, and pygmy sperm whale, diverged from other toothed whales soon after that, over 23million years ago.[176][178] From 1993 to 1996, molecular phylogenetics analyses by Milinkovitch and colleagues, based on comparing the genes of various modern whales, suggested that the sperm whales are more closely related to the baleen whales than they are to other toothed whales, which would have meant that Odontoceti were not monophyletic; in other words, it did not consist of a single ancestral toothed whale species and all its descendants.[174] However, more recent studies, based on various combinations of comparative anatomy and molecular phylogenetics, criticised Milinkovitch’s analysis on technical grounds and reaffirmed that the Odontoceti are monophyletic.[174][181][182]
In the 19th century, sperm whales were hunted using rowboats and hand-thrown harpoons, a rather dangerous method, as the whales sometimes fought back.
Spermaceti, obtained primarily from the spermaceti organ, and sperm oil, obtained primarily from the blubber in the body, were much sought after by eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century whalers. These substances found a variety of commercial applications, such as candles, soap, cosmetics, machine oil, other specialised lubricants, lamp oil, pencils, crayons, leather waterproofing, rust-proofing materials and many pharmaceutical compounds.[183][184][185][186]Ambergris, a solid, waxy, flammable substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales, was also sought as a fixative in perfumery.
Prior to the early eighteenth century, hunting was mostly by indigenous Indonesians.[187] Legend has it that sometime in the early eighteenth century, around 1712, Captain Christopher Hussey, while cruising for right whales near shore, was blown offshore by a northerly wind, where he encountered a sperm whale pod and killed one.[188] Although the story may not be true, sperm whales were indeed soon exploited by American whalers. Judge Paul Dudley, in his Essay upon the Natural History of Whales (1725), states that one Atkins, ten or twelve years in the trade, was among the first to catch sperm whales sometime around 1720 off the New England coast.[189]
There were only a few recorded catches during the first few decades (1709–1730s) of offshore sperm whaling. Instead, sloops concentrated on Nantucket Shoals, where they would have taken right whales or went to the Davis Strait region to catch bowhead whales. By the early 1740s, with the advent of spermaceti candles (before 1743), American vessels began to focus on sperm whales. The diary of Benjamin Bangs (1721–1769) shows that, along with the bumpkin sloop he sailed, he found three other sloops flensing sperm whales off the coast of North Carolina in late May 1743.[190] On returning to Nantucket in the summer 1744 on a subsequent voyage, he noted that “45 spermacetes are brought in here this day,” another indication that American sperm whaling was in full swing.[190]
American sperm whaling soon spread from the east coast of the American colonies to the Gulf Stream, the Grand Banks, West Africa (1763), the Azores (1765), and the South Atlantic (1770s). From 1770 to 1775 Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island ports produced 45,000 barrels of sperm oil annually, compared to 8,500 of whale oil.[191] In the same decade, the British began sperm whaling, employing American ships and personnel.[192] By the following decade, the French had entered the trade, also employing American expertise.[192] Sperm whaling increased until the mid-nineteenth century. Spermaceti oil was important in public lighting (for example, in lighthouses, where it was used in the United States until 1862, when it was replaced by lard oil, in turn replaced by petroleum) and for lubricating the machines (such as those used in cotton mills) of the Industrial Revolution. Sperm whaling declined in the second half of the nineteenth century, as petroleum came into broader use. In that sense, petroleum use may be said to have protected whale populations from even greater exploitation.[193][194] Sperm whaling in the eighteenth century began with small sloops carrying only one or two whaleboats. The fleet’s scope and size increased over time, and larger ships entered the fishery. In the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century sperm whaling ships sailed to the equatorial Pacific, the Indian Ocean, Japan, the coast of Arabia, Australia and New Zealand.[192][195][196] Hunting could be dangerous to the crew, since sperm whales (especially bulls) will readily fight to defend themselves against attack, unlike most baleen whales. When dealing with a threat, sperm whales will use their huge head effectively as a battering ram.[101] Arguably the most famous sperm whale counter-attack occurred on 20 November 1820, when a whale claimed to be about 25.9 metres (85 ft) long rammed and sank the Nantucket whaleship Essex. Only 8 out of 21 sailors survived to be rescued by other ships.[197] This instance is popularly believed to have inspired Herman Melville‘s famous book Moby-Dick.[198]
Scrimshaw was the art of drawing on the teeth of sperm whales. It was a way for whalers to pass the time between hunts.
The sperm whale’s ivory-like teeth were often sought by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century whalers, who used them to produce inked carvings known as scrimshaw. Thirty teeth of the sperm whale can be used for ivory. Each of these teeth, up to 20 cm (8 in) and 8 cm (3 in) across, are hollow for the first half of their length. Like walrus ivory, sperm whale ivory has two distinct layers. However, sperm whale ivory contains a much thicker inner layer. Though a widely practised art in the nineteenth century, scrimshaw using genuine sperm whale ivory declined substantially after the retirement of the whaling fleets in the 1880s. Currently the Endangered Species Act and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), prevents the sales of or trade in sperm whale ivory harvested after 1973 or scrimshaw crafted from it.
Modern whaling was more efficient than open-boat whaling, employing steam-powered ships and exploding harpoons. Initially, modern whaling activity focused on large baleen whales, but as these populations were taken, sperm whaling increased. Spermaceti, the fine waxy oil produced by sperm whales, was in high demand. In both the 1941 to 1942 and 1942 to 1943 seasons, Norwegian expeditions took over 3,000 sperm whales off the coast of Peru alone. After the war, whaling continued unabated to obtain oil for cosmetics and high-performance machinery, such as automobile transmissions.
The hunting led to the near extinction of large whales, including sperm whales, until bans on whale oil use were instituted in 1972. The International Whaling Commission gave the species full protection in 1985 but hunting by Japan in the northern Pacific Ocean continued until 1988.[194]
It is estimated that the historic worldwide population numbered 1,100,000 before commercial sperm whaling began in the early eighteenth century.[2] By 1880 it had declined by an estimated 29 percent.[2] From that date until 1946, the population appears to have partially recovered as whaling activity decreased, and after World War II, the whale population increases to 33 percent of the pre-whaling population.[2] Between 184,000 and 236,000 sperm whales were killed by the various whaling nations in the nineteenth century,[199] while in the twentieth century, at least 770,000 were taken, the majority between 1946 and 1980.[200]
Sperm whaling peaked in the 1830s and 1960s.
Sperm whales increase levels of primary production and carbon export by depositing iron-rich faeces into surface waters of the Southern Ocean. The iron-rich faeces cause phytoplankton to grow and take up more carbon from the atmosphere. When the phytoplankton dies, it sinks to the deep ocean and takes the atmospheric carbon with it. By reducing the abundance of sperm whales in the Southern Ocean, whaling has resulted in an extra 2 million tonnes of carbon remaining in the atmosphere each year.[201]
Remaining sperm whale populations are large enough that the species’ conservation status is rated as vulnerable rather than endangered.[2] However, the recovery from centuries of commercial whaling is a slow process, particularly in the South Pacific, where the toll on breeding-age males was severe.[202]
Current conservation status
The total number of sperm whales in the world is unknown, but is thought to be in the hundreds of thousands.[2] The conservation outlook is brighter than for many other whales. Commercial whaling has ceased,[2] and the species is protected almost worldwide, though records indicate that in the eleven-year period starting from 2000, Japan has caught 51 sperm whales. Fishermen do not target the creatures sperm whales eat,[2] but long-line fishing operations in the Gulf of Alaska have complained about sperm whales stealing fish from their lines.[135]
Currently, entanglement in fishing nets and collisions with ships represent the greatest threats to the sperm whale population.[44] Other threats include ingestion of marine debris, ocean noise, and chemical pollution.[203] The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) regards the sperm whale as being “Vulnerable“.[2] The species is listed as endangered on the United States Endangered Species Act.[204]
Rope-mounted teeth are important cultural objects throughout the Pacific. In New Zealand, the Māori know them as “rei puta”; such whale tooth pendants were rare objects because sperm whales were not actively hunted in traditional Māori society.[206] Whale ivory and bone were taken from beached whales. In Fiji the teeth are known as tabua, traditionally given as gifts for atonement or esteem (called sevusevu), and were important in negotiations between rival chiefs.[207]Friedrich Ratzel in The History of Mankind reported in 1896 that, in Fiji, whales’ or cachalots’ teeth were the most-demanded article of ornament or value. They occurred often in necklaces.[208] Today the tabua remains an important item in Fijian life. The teeth were originally rare in Fiji and Tonga, which exported teeth, but with the Europeans’ arrival, teeth flooded the market and this “currency” collapsed. The oversupply led in turn to the development of the European art of scrimshaw.[209]
Herman Melville‘s novel Moby-Dick is based on a true story about a sperm whale that attacked and sank the whaleship Essex.[210][211] Melville associated the sperm whale with the Bible’s Leviathan.[211][212] The fearsome reputation perpetuated by Melville was based on bull whales’ ability to fiercely defend themselves from attacks by early whalers, occasionally resulting in the destruction of the whaling ships.
The sperm whale was designated as the Connecticutstate animal by the CT General Assembly in 1975. It was selected because of its specific contribution to the state’s history and because of its present-day plight as an endangered species.[213]
Sperm whales are not the easiest of whales to watch, due to their long dive times and ability to travel long distances underwater. However, due to the distinctive look and large size of the whale, watching is increasingly popular. Sperm whale watchers often use hydrophones to listen to the clicks of the whales and locate them before they surface. Popular locations for sperm whale watching include the town of Kaikoura on New Zealand‘s South Island, Andenes and Tromsø in Arctic Norway; as well as the Azores, where the continental shelf is so narrow that whales can be observed from the shore,[120][214] and Dominica[215] where a long-term scientific research program, The Dominica Sperm Whale Project, has been in operation since 2005.[
Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known as Rabbie Burns, the Bard of Ayrshire and various other names and epithets,[nb 1] was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is also in English and a light Scots dialect, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland. He also wrote in standard English, and in these writings his political or civil commentary is often at its bluntest.
He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement, and after his death he became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism, and a cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish diaspora around the world. Celebration of his life and work became almost a national charismatic cult during the 19th and 20th centuries, and his influence has long been strong on Scottish literature. In 2009 he was chosen as the greatest Scot by the Scottish public in a vote run by Scottish television channel STV.
He was born in a house built by his father (now the Burns Cottage Museum), where he lived until Easter 1766, when he was seven years old. William Burnes sold the house and took the tenancy of the 70-acre (280,000 m2) Mount Oliphant farm, southeast of Alloway. Here Burns grew up in poverty and hardship, and the severe manual labour of the farm left its traces in a premature stoop and a weakened constitution.
He had little regular schooling and got much of his education from his father, who taught his children reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and history and also wrote for them A Manual Of Christian Belief. He was also taught by John Murdoch (1747–1824), who opened an “adventure school” in Alloway in 1763 and taught Latin, French, and mathematics to both Robert and his brother Gilbert (1760–1827) from 1765 to 1768 until Murdoch left the parish. After a few years of home education, Burns was sent to Dalrymple Parish School during the summer of 1772 before returning at harvest time to full-time farm labouring until 1773, when he was sent to lodge with Murdoch for three weeks to study grammar, French, and Latin.
By the age of 15, Burns was the principal labourer at Mount Oliphant. During the harvest of 1774, he was assisted by Nelly Kilpatrick (1759–1820), who inspired his first attempt at poetry, “O, Once I Lov’d A Bonnie Lass”. In the summer of 1775, he was sent to finish his education with a tutor at Kirkoswald, where he met Peggy Thompson (b.1762), to whom he wrote two songs, “Now Westlin’ Winds” and “I Dream’d I Lay”.
Tarbolton
Despite his ability and character, William Burnes was consistently unfortunate, and migrated with his large family from farm to farm without ever being able to improve his circumstances. At Whitsun, 1777, he removed his large family from the unfavourable conditions of Mount Oliphant to the 130-acre (0.53 km2) farm at Lochlea, near Tarbolton, where they stayed until William Burnes’ death in 1784. Subsequently, the family became integrated into the community of Tarbolton. To his father’s disapproval, Robert joined a country dancing school in 1779 and, with Gilbert, formed the Tarbolton Bachelors’ Club the following year. His earliest existing letters date from this time, when he began making romantic overtures to Alison Begbie (b. 1762). In spite of four songs written for her and a suggestion that he was willing to marry her, she rejected him.
Robert Burns was initiated into masonic Lodge St David, Tarbolton, on 4 July 1781, when he was 22.
In December 1781, Burns moved temporarily to Irvine to learn to become a flax-dresser, but during the workers’ celebrations for New Year 1781/1782 (which included Burns as a participant) the flax shop caught fire and was burnt to the ground. This venture accordingly came to an end, and Burns went home to Lochlea farm. During this time he met and befriended Captain Richard Brown who encouraged him to become a poet.
He continued to write poems and songs and began a commonplace book in 1783, while his father fought a legal dispute with his landlord. The case went to the Court of Session, and Burnes was upheld in January 1784, a fortnight before he died.
Robert and Gilbert made an ineffectual struggle to keep on the farm, but after its failure they moved to the farm at Mossgiel, near Mauchline, in March, which they maintained with an uphill fight for the next four years. During the summer of 1784 Burns came to know a group of girls known collectively as The Belles of Mauchline, one of whom was Jean Armour, the daughter of a stonemason from Mauchline.
Love affairs
His first child, Elizabeth Paton Burns (1785–1817), was born to his mother’s servant, Elizabeth Paton (1760–circa 1799), while he was embarking on a relationship with Jean Armour, who became pregnant with twins in March 1786. Burns signed a paper attesting his marriage to Jean, but her father “was in the greatest distress, and fainted away”. To avoid disgrace, her parents sent her to live with her uncle in Paisley. Although Armour’s father initially forbade it, they were eventually married in 1788.[6] Armour bore him nine children, only three of whom survived infancy.
Burns was in financial difficulties due to his want of success in farming, and to make enough money to support a family he took up a friend’s offer of work in Jamaica,[7] at a salary of £30 per annum.[8][9] The position that Burns accepted was as a bookkeeper on a slave plantation. Burns’s egalitarian views were typified by “The Slave’s Lament” six years later, but in 1786 there was little public awareness of the abolitionist movement that began about that time.[10][11]
At about the same time, Burns fell in love with Mary Campbell (1763–1786), whom he had seen in church while he was still living in Tarbolton. She was born near Dunoon and had lived in Campbeltown before moving to work in Ayrshire. He dedicated the poems “The Highland Lassie O”, “Highland Mary”, and “To Mary in Heaven” to her. His song “Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, And leave auld Scotia’s shore?” suggests that they planned to emigrate to Jamaica together. Their relationship has been the subject of much conjecture, and it has been suggested that on 14 May 1786 they exchanged Bibles and plighted their troth over the Water of Fail in a traditional form of marriage. Soon afterwards Mary Campbell left her work in Ayrshire, went to the seaport of Greenock, and sailed home to her parents in Campbeltown.[8][9]
In October 1786, Mary and her father sailed from Campbeltown to visit her brother in Greenock. Her brother fell ill with typhus, which she also caught while nursing him. She died of typhus on 20 or 21 October 1786 and was buried there.[9]
Kilmarnock Edition
Title page of the Kilmarnock Edition
As Burns lacked the funds to pay for his passage to the West Indies, Gavin Hamilton suggested that he should “publish his poems in the mean time by subscription, as a likely way of getting a little money to provide him more liberally in necessaries for Jamaica.” On 3 April Burns sent proposals for publishing his Scotch Poems to John Wilson, a local printer in Kilmarnock, who published these proposals on 14 April 1786, on the same day that Jean Armour’s father tore up the paper in which Burns attested his marriage to Jean. To obtain a certificate that he was a free bachelor, Burns agreed on 25 June to stand for rebuke in the Mauchline kirk for three Sundays. He transferred his share in Mossgiel farm to his brother Gilbert on 22 July, and on 30 July wrote to tell his friend John Richmond that, “Armour has got a warrant to throw me in jail until I can find a warrant for an enormous sum … I am wandering from one friend’s house to another.”[12]
On 31 July 1786 John Wilson published the volume of works by Robert Burns, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish dialect.[13] Known as the Kilmarnock volume, it sold for 3 shillings and contained much of his best writing, including “The Twa Dogs”, “Address to the Deil“, “Halloween“, “The Cotter’s Saturday Night”, “To a Mouse“, “Epitaph for James Smith“, and “To a Mountain Daisy“, many of which had been written at Mossgiel farm. The success of the work was immediate, and soon he was known across the country.
Burns postponed his planned emigration to Jamaica on 1 September, and was at Mossgiel two days later when he learnt that Jean Armour had given birth to twins. On 4 September Thomas Blacklock wrote a letter expressing admiration for the poetry in the Kilmarnock volume, and suggesting an enlarged second edition.[13] A copy of it was passed to Burns, who later recalled, “I had taken the last farewell of my few friends, my chest was on the road to Greenock; I had composed the last song I should ever measure in Scotland – ‘The Gloomy night is gathering fast’ – when a letter from Dr Blacklock to a friend of mine overthrew all my schemes, by opening new prospects to my poetic ambition. The Doctor belonged to a set of critics for whose applause I had not dared to hope. His opinion that I would meet with encouragement in Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much, that away I posted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a single letter of introduction.”[14]
On 27 November 1786 Burns borrowed a pony and set out for Edinburgh. On 14 December William Creech issued subscription bills for the first Edinburgh edition of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish dialect, which was published on 17 April 1787. Within a week of this event, Burns had sold his copyright to Creech for 100 guineas.[13] For the edition, Creech commissioned Alexander Nasmyth to paint the oval bust-length portrait now in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, which was engraved to provide a frontispiece for the book. Nasmyth had come to know Burns and his fresh and appealing image has become the basis for almost all subsequent representations of the poet.[15] In Edinburgh, he was received as an equal by the city’s men of letters—including Dugald Stewart, Robertson, Blair and others—and was a guest at aristocratic gatherings, where he bore himself with unaffected dignity. Here he encountered, and made a lasting impression on, the 16-year-old Walter Scott, who described him later with great admiration:
His person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not clownish, a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity which received part of its effect perhaps from knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His features are presented in Mr Nasmyth’s picture but to me it conveys the idea that they are diminished, as if seen in perspective. I think his countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits … there was a strong expression of shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, and literally glowed when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time.
The new edition of his poems brought Burns £400. His stay in the city also resulted in some lifelong friendships, among which were those with Lord Glencairn, and Frances Anna Dunlop (1730–1815), who became his occasional sponsor and with whom he corresponded for many years until a rift developed. He embarked on a relationship with the separated Agnes “Nancy” McLehose (1758–1841), with whom he exchanged passionate letters under pseudonyms (Burns called himself “Sylvander” and Nancy “Clarinda”‘). When it became clear that Nancy would not be easily seduced into a physical relationship, Burns moved on to Jenny Clow (1766–1792), Nancy’s domestic servant, who bore him a son, Robert Burns Clow, in 1788. He also had an affair with a servant girl, Margaret “May” Cameron. His relationship with Nancy concluded in 1791 with a final meeting in Edinburgh before she sailed to Jamaica for what turned out to be a short-lived reconciliation with her estranged husband. Before she left, he sent her the manuscript of “Ae Fond Kiss” as a farewell.
In Edinburgh, in early 1787, he met James Johnson, a struggling music engraver and music seller with a love of old Scots songs and a determination to preserve them. Burns shared this interest and became an enthusiastic contributor to The Scots Musical Museum. The first volume was published in 1787 and included three songs by Burns. He contributed 40 songs to volume two, and he ended up responsible for about a third of the 600 songs in the whole collection, as well as making a considerable editorial contribution. The final volume was published in 1803.
On his return from Edinburgh in February 1788, he resumed his relationship with Jean Armour and took a lease on Ellisland Farm, Dumfriesshire, settling there in June. He also trained as a gauger or exciseman in case farming continued to be unsuccessful. He was appointed to duties in Customs and Excise in 1789 and eventually gave up the farm in 1791. Meanwhile, in November 1790, he had written “Tam O’ Shanter“. About this time he was offered and declined an appointment in London on the staff of The Star newspaper,[16] and refused to become a candidate for a newly created Chair of Agriculture in the University of Edinburgh,[16] although influential friends offered to support his claims. He did however accept membership of the Royal Company of Archers in 1792.[17]
Lyricist
After giving up his farm, he removed to Dumfries. It was at this time that, being requested to write lyrics for The Melodies of Scotland, he responded by contributing over 100 songs. He made major contributions to George Thomson‘s A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice as well as to James Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum. Arguably his claim to immortality chiefly rests on these volumes, which placed him in the front rank of lyric poets. As a songwriter he provided his own lyrics, sometimes adapted from traditional words. He put words to Scottish folk melodies and airs which he collected, and composed his own arrangements of the music including modifying tunes or recreating melodies on the basis of fragments. In letters he explained that he preferred simplicity, relating songs to spoken language which should be sung in traditional ways. The original instruments would be fiddle and the guitar of the period which was akin to a cittern, but the transcription of songs for piano has resulted in them usually being performed in classical concert or music hall styles.[18]
Thomson as a publisher commissioned arrangements of “Scottish, Welsh and Irish Airs” by such eminent composers of the day as Franz Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven, with new lyrics. The contributors of lyrics included Burns. While such arrangements had wide popular appeal,[19][20][21][22] Beethoven’s music was more advanced and difficult to play than Thomson intended.[23][24]
Burns described how he had to master singing the tune before he composed the words:
Burns House in Dumfries, Scotland
My way is:
I consider the poetic sentiment, correspondent to my idea of the musical expression, then chuse my theme, begin one stanza, when that is composed—which is generally the most difficult part of the business—I walk out, sit down now and then, look out for objects in nature around me that are in unison or harmony with the cogitations of my fancy and workings of my bosom, humming every now and then the air with the verses I have framed. when I feel my Muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and there commit my effusions to paper, swinging, at intervals, on the hind-legs of my elbow chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures, as my, pen goes.
—Robert Burns
Burns also worked to collect and preserve Scottish folk songs, sometimes revising, expanding, and adapting them. One of the better known of these collections is The Merry Muses of Caledonia (the title is not Burns’s), a collection of bawdy lyrics that were popular in the music halls of Scotland as late as the 20th century. Many of Burns’s most famous poems are songs with the music based upon older traditional songs. For example, “Auld Lang Syne” is set to the traditional tune “Can Ye Labour Lea”, “A Red, Red Rose” is set to the tune of “Major Graham” and “The Battle of Sherramuir” is set to the “Cameronian Rant”.
Failing health and death
The death room of Robert Burns
Robert Burns Mausoleum at St. Michael’s churchyard in Dumfries
Burns’s worldly prospects were perhaps better than they had ever been; but he had become soured, and moreover he had alienated many of his best friends by too freely expressing sympathy with the French Revolution and the then unpopular advocates of reform at home. His political views also came to the notice of his employers and in an attempt to prove his loyalty to the Crown, Burns joined the Royal Dumfries Volunteers in March 1795.[25] As his health began to give way, he began to age prematurely and fell into fits of despondency. The habits of intemperance (alleged mainly by temperance activist James Currie)[26] are said to have aggravated his long-standing possible rheumatic heart condition.[27] His death followed a dental extraction in winter 1795.
On the morning of 21 July 1796, Burns died in Dumfries, at the age of 37. The funeral took place on Monday 25 July 1796, the day that his son Maxwell was born. He was at first buried in the far corner of St. Michael’s Churchyard in Dumfries; a simple “slab of freestone” was erected as his gravestone by Jean Armour, which some felt insulting to his memory.[28] His body was eventually moved to its final location in the same cemetery, the Burns Mausoleum, in September 1817.[29] The body of his widow Jean Armour was buried with his in 1834.[27]
Armour had taken steps to secure his personal property, partly by liquidating two promissory notes amounting to fifteen pounds sterling (about 1,100 pounds at 2009 prices).[30] The family went to the Court of Session in 1798 with a plan to support his surviving children by publishing a four-volume edition of his complete works and a biography written by Dr. James Currie. Subscriptions were raised to meet the initial cost of publication, which was in the hands of Thomas Cadell and William Davies in London and William Creech, bookseller in Edinburgh.[31] Hogg records that fund-raising for Burns’s family was embarrassingly slow, and it took several years to accumulate significant funds through the efforts of John Syme and Alexander Cunningham.[27]
Burns was posthumously given the freedom of the town of Dumfries.[26] Hogg records that Burns was given the freedom of the Burgh of Dumfries on 4 June 1787, 9 years before his death, and was also made an Honorary Burgess of Dumfries.[32]
Through his twelve children, Burns has over 600 living descendants as of 2012.[33]
Literary style
Burns’s style is marked by spontaneity, directness, and sincerity, and ranges from the tender intensity of some of his lyrics through the humour of “Tam o’ Shanter” and the satire of “Holy Willie’s Prayer” and “The Holy Fair”.
Statue of Burns in Dumfries town centre, unveiled in 1882
Burns’s poetry drew upon a substantial familiarity with and knowledge of Classical, Biblical, and English literature, as well as the Scottish Makar tradition.[34] Burns was skilled in writing not only in the Scots language but also in the Scottish English dialect of the English language. Some of his works, such as “Love and Liberty” (also known as “The Jolly Beggars”), are written in both Scots and English for various effects.[35]
The strong emotional highs and lows associated with many of Burns’s poems have led some, such as Burns biographer Robert Crawford,[37] to suggest that he suffered from manic depression—a hypothesis that has been supported by analysis of various samples of his handwriting. Burns himself referred to suffering from episodes of what he called “blue devilism”. However, the National Trust for Scotland has downplayed the suggestion on the grounds that evidence is insufficient to support the claim.[38]
Influence
Britain
Burns is generally classified as a proto-Romantic poet, and he influenced William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Percy Bysshe Shelley greatly. His direct literary influences in the use of Scots in poetry were Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson. The Edinburgh literati worked to sentimentalise Burns during his life and after his death, dismissing his education by calling him a “heaven-taught ploughman”. Burns influenced later Scottish writers, especially Hugh MacDiarmid, who fought to dismantle what he felt had become a sentimental cult that dominated Scottish literature.
Canada
Burns Monument in Dorchester square, Montréal, Québec
Burns had a significant influence on Alexander McLachlan[39] and some influence on Robert Service. While this may not be so obvious in Service’s English verse, which is Kiplingesque, it is more readily apparent in his Scots verse.[40]
Scottish Canadians have embraced Robert Burns as a kind of patron poet and mark his birthday with festivities. ‘Robbie Burns Day’ is celebrated from Newfoundland and Labrador[41] to Nanaimo.[42] Every year, Canadian newspapers publish biographies of the poet,[43] listings of local events[44] and buffet menus.[45] Universities mark the date in a range of ways: McMaster University library organized a special collection[46] and Simon Fraser University‘s Centre for Scottish Studies organized a marathon reading of Burns’ poetry).[47][48]Senator Heath Macquarrie quipped of Canada’s first Prime Minister that “While the lovable [Robbie] Burns went in for wine, women and song, his fellow Scot, John A. did not chase women and was not musical!” [49] ‘Gung Haggis Fat Choy’ is a hybrid of Chinese New Year and Robbie Burns Day, celebrated in Vancouver since the late 1990s.[50][51]
United States
In January 1864, President Abraham Lincoln was invited to attend a Robert Burns celebration by Robert Crawford; and if unable to attend, send a toast. Lincoln composed a toast.[52]
An example of Burns’s literary influence in the U.S. is seen in the choice by novelist John Steinbeck of the title of his 1937 novel, Of Mice and Men, taken from a line in the second-to-last stanza of “To a Mouse“: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley.” Burns’s influence on American vernacular poets such as James Whitcomb Riley and Frank Lebby Stanton has been acknowledged by their biographers.[53] When asked for the source of his greatest creative inspiration, singer songwriter Bob Dylan selected Burns’s 1794 song “A Red, Red Rose” as the lyric that had the biggest effect on his life.[54][55] The author J. D. Salinger used protagonist Holden Caulfield’s misinterpretation of Burns’s poem “Comin’ Through the Rye” as his title and a main interpretation of Caulfield’s grasping to his childhood in his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye. The poem, actually about a rendezvous, is thought by Caulfield to be about saving people from falling out of childhood.[56]
Russia
Burns became the “people’s poet” of Russia. In Imperial Russia Burns was translated into Russian and became a source of inspiration for the ordinary, oppressed Russian people. In Soviet Russia, he was elevated as the archetypal poet of the people. As a great admirer of the egalitarian ethos behind the American and French Revolutions who expressed his own egalitarianism in poems such as his “Birthday Ode for George Washington” or his “Is There for Honest Poverty” (commonly known as “A Man’s a Man for a’ that”), Burns was well placed for endorsement by the Communist regime as a “progressive” artist. A new translation of Burns begun in 1924 by Samuil Marshak proved enormously popular, selling over 600,000 copies.[57] The USSR honoured Burns with a commemorative stamp in 1956. He remains popular in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.[58]
Burns clubs have been founded worldwide. The first one, known as The Mother Club, was founded in Greenock in 1801 by merchants born in Ayrshire, some of whom had known Burns. The club set its original objectives as “To cherish the name of Robert Burns; to foster a love of his writings, and generally to encourage an interest in the Scottish language and literature.” The club also continues to have local charitable work as a priority.[59]
Burns’s birthplace in Alloway is now a public museum known as Burns Cottage. His house in Dumfries is operated as the Robert Burns House, and the Robert Burns Centre in Dumfries features more exhibits about his life and works. Ellisland Farm in Auldgirth, which he owned from 1788 to 1791, is maintained as a working farm with a museum and interpretation centre by the Friends of Ellisland Farm.
Significant 19th-century monuments to him stand in Alloway, Edinburgh, and Dumfries. An early 20th-century replica of his birthplace cottage belonging to the Burns Club Atlanta stands in Atlanta, Georgia. These are part of a large list of Burns memorials and statues around the world.
In the suburb of Summerhill, Dumfries, the majority of the streets have names with Burns connotations. A British Rail Standard Class 7 steam locomotive was named after him, along with a later Class 87 electric locomotive, No. 87035. On 24 September 1996, Class 156 diesel unit 156433 was named “The Kilmarnock Edition” by Jimmy Knapp, General Secretary of the RMT union, at Girvan Station to launch the new “Burns Line” services between Girvan, Ayr, and Kilmarnock, supported by Strathclyde Passenger Transport (SPT).
Several streets surrounding the Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.‘s Back Bay Fens in Boston, Massachusetts, were designated with Burns connotations. A life-size statue was dedicated in Burns’s honour within the Back Bay Fens of the West Fenway neighbourhood in 1912. It stood until 1972 when it was relocated downtown, sparking protests from the neighbourhood, literary fans, and preservationists of Olmsted’s vision for the Back Bay Fens.
There is a statue of Burns in The Octagon, Dunedin, in the same pose as the one in Dundee. Dunedin’s first European settlers were Scots; Thomas Burns, a nephew of Burns, was one of Dunedin’s founding fathers.
A crater on Mercury is named after Burns.
In November 2012, Burns was awarded the title Honorary Chartered Surveyor[60] by The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the only posthumous membership so far granted by the institution.
The oldest statue of Burns is in the town of Camperdown, Victoria.[61] It now hosts an annual Robert Burns Scottish Festival in celebration of the statue and its history.[62]
The Soviet Union was the first country in the world to honour Burns with a commemorative stamp, marking the 160th anniversary of his death in 1956.[63]
The Royal Mail has issued postage stamps commemorating Burns three times. In 1966, two stamps were issued, priced fourpence and one shilling and threepence, both carrying Burns’s portrait. In 1996, an issue commemorating the bicentenary of his death comprised four stamps, priced 19p, 25p, 41p and 60p and including quotes from Burns’s poems. On 22 January 2009, two stamps were issued by the Royal Mail to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Burns’s birth.
Burns was pictured on the Clydesdale Bank £5 note from 1971 to 2009.[64][65] On the reverse of the note was a vignette of a field mouse and a wild rose in reference to Burns’s poem “To a Mouse”. The Clydesdale Bank’s notes were redesigned in 2009 and, since then, he has been pictured on the front of their £10 note.[65] In September 2007, the Bank of Scotland redesigned their banknotes to feature famous Scottish bridges. The reverse side of new £5 features Brig o’ Doon, famous from Burns’s poem “Tam o’ Shanter”, and pictures the statue of Burns at that site.[66]
In 1996, the Isle of Man issued a four-coin set of Crown (5/-) pieces on the themes of “Auld Lang Syne”, Edinburgh Castle, Revenue Cutter, and Writing Poems.[67] Tristan da Cunha produced a gold £5 Bicentenary Coin.[68]
In 1976, singer Jean Redpath, in collaboration with composer Serge Hovey, started to record all of Burns’ songs, with a mixture of traditional and Burns’ own compositions. The project ended when Hovey died, after seven of the planned twenty-two volumes were completed. Redpath also recorded four cassettes of Burns’ songs (re-issued as 3 CDs) for the Scots Musical Museum.[70]
In 1996, a musical about Burns’s life called Red Red Rose won third place at a competition for new musicals in Denmark. Robert Burns was played by John Barrowman. On 25 January 2008, a musical play about the love affair between Robert Burns and Nancy McLehose entitled Clarinda premiered in Edinburgh before touring Scotland.[71] The plan was that Clarinda would make its American premiere in Atlantic Beach, FL, at Atlantic Beach Experimental Theatre on 25 January 2013.[72]Eddi Reader has released two albums, Sings the Songs of Robert Burns and The Songs of Robert Burns Deluxe Edition, about the work of the poet.
“Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!” – cutting the haggis at a Burns supper
Burns Night, in effect a second national day, is celebrated on Burns’s birthday, 25 January, with Burns suppers around the world, and is more widely observed in Scotland than the official national day, St. Andrew’s Day. The first Burns supper in The Mother Club in Greenock was held on what was thought to be his birthday on 29 January 1802; in 1803 it was discovered from the Ayr parish records that the correct date was 25 January 1759.[59]
The format of Burns suppers has changed little since. The basic format starts with a general welcome and announcements, followed with the Selkirk Grace. After the grace comes the piping and cutting of the haggis, when Burns’s famous “Address to a Haggis” is read and the haggis is cut open. The event usually allows for people to start eating just after the haggis is presented. At the end of the meal, a series of toasts and replies is made. This is when the toast to “the immortal memory”, an overview of Burns’s life and work, is given. The event usually concludes with the singing of “Auld Lang Syne”.
Greatest Scot
In 2009, STV ran a television series and public vote on who was “The Greatest Scot” of all time. Robert Burns won, narrowly beating William Wallace.
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Fun Facts
1. Burns is a music legend
Countless singers, from Mariah Carey to Susan Boyle, have covered Robert’s poem, Auld Lang Syne
2. How many statues?
There are more statues of Robert Burns in the world than any other non-religious figure, after Queen Victoria and Christopher Columbus.
In fact, you can’t go anywhere without bumping in to him, with statues in Australia, Canada, America, New Zealand and of course, the UK.
3. He was a womaniser
When he wasn’t busy writing astounding poems, he had a pretty busy schedule in the bedroom too. Burn fathered 12 children from four different mothers.
His last child, Maxwell, was born on the day of his funeral in 1796.
4. Long hair, don’t care
He was also a rebel teenager, growing his hair long and wearing it inn a ponytail
The 18th century equivalent of the middle finger at your parents.
5. No net-worth
Despite being widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, Burns died a very poor man with approximately £1 to his name.
A net-worth of no more than the cost of two cans of Irn Bru.
6. He was very big headed
According to a plaster cast taken of his skull, Robert Burns had a larger head than the average man.
Now, nothing has been scientifically proven but perhaps that is why so much creative genius would flow from his noggin to paper.
7. Burns is Blowin’ in the Wind
Scotland’s National Bard has been the inspiration to many music legends, including Bob Dylan who cited him as his greatest creative inspiration.
8. He inspired Thriller!
Even if you thought Mr Burns was just a character in The Simpsons, you have probably been listening to songs inspired by his writing.
It is said that Michael Jackson’s smash hit Thriller ’ was inspired by Burn’s ‘Tam o’Shanter’ poem.
9. Michael Jackson loved Rabbie
Jacko’s obsession didn’t stop there; he even created a whole album based on Rabbie Burns’ poems.
He and David Gest collaborated to create a musical about the poet’s life.
10. Fans in high places
U.S president, Abraham Lincoln, could recite Burn’s work by heart. He would regularly break out in to sporadic verse to entertain guests at The White House.
A traditional Scottish dish most people either love or hate, given its unique list of ingredients. Haggis is usually made by combining sheep’s ‘pluck’ (heart, liver and lungs) with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, soaked in stock and then boiled in the sheep’s stomach.
Haggis is traditionally served as part of the Burns supper annually on January 25th, when Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, is celebrated.
Availability
Widely available in supermarkets, however cheaper brands normally come in artificial skins rather than the traditional stomach.
Cook it
Haggis is traditionally served with neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes).
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