SPERM WHALES 199 



thereby to deliver the fattest gum that comes out of 

 it, which tree otherwise by its copious fatness might 

 be burnt and destroyed." 



A curious mingling of truth with inaccuracy is 

 shown in the views upon this substance of Sir Thomas 

 Brown. He describes in the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions (vol. xxxiii., p. 193) a Sperm whale cast up 

 on the shore of Norfolk. "In vain," he writes, "it 

 was to rake for ambergriese in the paunch of this 

 leviathan, as Greenland discoverers, and attests of 

 experience dictate, that they sometimes swallow great 

 lumps thereof in the sea insufferable fetor denying 

 that inquiry ! " It appears, therefore, that the author 

 of Relioio Medici knew that ambero-ris was found in 



o o 



the alimentary canal of the Sperm whale, but thought 

 that it was swallowed by the creature. From this 

 perhaps were derived two alternative views of the 

 nature of ambergris given in Johnsons Dictionary 

 (edition of 1818). It is described as the excrement 

 of birds washed off rocks and swallowed by birds, or 

 honeycombs that have fallen into the sea. 



Physeter macrocephalus, Linnaeus* (with probable 

 synonyms : P. catodon, Fabricius ; P. gibbosus, 

 Schreber ; P. trumpo, Gerard ; P. polyclystiis, Couch ; 

 Catodon aiistralis, MacLeay ; C. colneti, Gray ; P. 

 polycyphus, Ouoy and Gaimard), is really the only 

 species that can be satisfactorily allowed. 



The above list of synonyms shows that there were 

 held to be several species of Sperm whales. But 



* Systema Natur., I2th ed., i., p. 107. 



