WHALES AND MERMAIDS 321 



being truncated vertically in front. Unlike the right 

 whales, the lower jaw is small (without any prominent 

 upwardly projecting lip), is set with numerous simply 

 conical teeth, and does not extend so far forward as the 

 muzzle. The bones which support the immense upper 

 jaw, do not by any means correspond with it in shape, 

 for the upper surface of the skull is much lower and 

 concave. The great mass of the upper jaw consists only 

 of about a ton of an oily substance which yields " sper- 

 maceti," while the blubber, which everywhere copiously 

 clothes the body, is the source of what is known as 

 " sperm oil." The substance known as " ambergris " by 

 perfumers, is also a product of this animal, being a con- 

 cretion formed in its intestines. The nostrils have but a 

 single external aperture, which opens close to the front 

 end of the top of the snout, a little to the left of it, and 

 so the animal "spouts" forward and over to one side. 

 Some one-sidedness and want of symmetry are also to be 

 found in the bones of the skull in this animal and. more 

 or less, in all toothed whales. The nasal passage from 

 the roof of the mouth to the external aperture, or 

 " spiracle," may be twenty feet in length. The general 

 colour is black, but the belly is grey. The sperm whale 

 is a very widely diffused animal in all the warmer seas, 

 where it may often be seen swimming with its snout 

 raised above the surface of the water, a fact probably 

 due to its being made buoyant by the immense mass of 

 fat it contains. When startled it will often assume a 

 perpendicular posture, with half the body out of the 

 water, to look and listen. While the animal is alive, 

 this fat is fluid, and when the whale is killed a hole is 

 made in the outer and upper part of the head, and the 

 liquid baled out with buckets. It solidifies on cooling, 

 and being afterwards refined, assumes that beautifully 



