62 A BOOK OF WHALES 



stomach; the small intermediate chamber III. appears 

 to be absent. 



The stomach of the Ziphioid whales is in one 

 important respect different from that of the whale 

 group that we have hitherto considered. 



The stomachs of the genera Hyperoodon, Meso- 

 plodon, and Zip/tins have been carefully examined 

 by more than one observer.* Berardius alone is 

 as yet unknown as regards its "soft parts." As a 

 general rule the Ziphioid whales differ from others 

 in the very large number of compartments into which 

 the stomach is divided. Nine, ten, even thirteen or 

 fourteen divisions have been recorded ; and the 

 varied statements which occur in the literature of 

 the subject with respect to the exact number of com- 

 partments in the stomach of a given species are 

 not, it is thought, evidence of inaccuracy on the part 

 of one or more of the describers, but simply an 

 expression of actual variability. This, however, 

 is a detailed difference. The most important 

 difference is that the first division of the 

 stomach gives off the second at its posterior and 

 not at its anterior end. In the stomachs of the 

 whales that we have been considering a cuttlefish 

 or a herring when swallowed might, so far as anato- 

 mical arrangement is concerned, pass at once into 

 the second compartment as well as into the first, as 

 will at once be seen in division No. II. That would 

 be impossible in a Ziphioid. The first compartment 



* "The Anatomy of a Second Specimen of Sowerby's Whale" (Meso- 

 plodon bidens), Joiirn. Ana/. Phys., 1885, p. 144. 



