New observations of the neutral hydrogen ( H i ) in and around the line of sight of the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal ( dSph ) are presented .
The data obtained with the single-dish Parkes telescope cover a large area of 7 \arcdeg \times 7 \arcdeg in the direction of the dwarf , and have resolutions of 15 \farcm 5 \times 1.12 km s ^ { -1 } .
The Australia Telescope Compact Array was used to map a smaller area of 2 \fdg 2 \times 2 \fdg 2 centered on the direction of the dwarf with higher resolutions ( 350 \arcsec \times 140 \arcsec \times 1.65 km s ^ { -1 } ) .
Many H i structures having velocities outside the range of the normal Galactic disk velocities were detected , including the two Sculptor clouds ( northeast and southwest ) of Carignan et al .
( 1998 , C98 ) .
The present study shows the total extent of the C98 clouds .
We derived heliocentric radial velocities for the NE and SW clouds of 100.2 \pm 0.9 km s ^ { -1 } and 105.1 \pm 0.3 km s ^ { -1 } , respectively .
The intensity-weighted mean H i velocity for both clouds is 104.1 \pm 0.4 km s ^ { -1 } .

Three different hypotheses concerning the association of the C98 Sculptor clouds were considered .
The case for the clouds belonging to the Sculptor group of galaxies is found to be inconsistent with the observational data .
The probability of the C98 Sculptor clouds to be Milky Way features at anomalous velocities ( HVCs ) superimposed by chance on the Sculptor dSph is estimated to be less than 2 % .
The third hypothesis assumes that the clouds are physically associated with the Sculptor dSph , and is supported by the following evidences : ( a ) the radial velocities for both clouds are very close to the optical velocity of the Sculptor dSph ( \Delta V = 4 \pm 3 km s ^ { -1 } ) .
( b ) 88 % of the total H i flux is contained within the optical radius of the galaxy , and ( c ) the clouds are located symmetrically relative to the center of the Sculptor dSph .
Arguments are presented that the C98 Sculptor clouds are still gravitationally bound to the dwarf galaxy , and are part of its interstellar medium .
The mass of each cloud is ( 4.1 \pm 0.2 ) \times 10 ^ { 4 } M _ { \odot } ( NE cloud ) and ( 1.93 \pm 0.02 ) \times 10 ^ { 5 } M _ { \odot } ( SW cloud ) at the Sculptor dSph distance ( 79 kpc ) .