230 A BOOK OF WHALES 



four teeth at will." This extraordinary statement is 

 supported by an anatomical fact discovered by Dr. 

 Hector in another example of this species. He 

 found that the teeth were embedded "in a tough 

 cartilaginous sac, which adheres loosely in the socket 

 of the jaw, and is moved by a series of muscular 

 bundles that elevate or depress it." Sir W. Flower 

 justly remarks that these facts "accord so little with 

 anything hitherto known in mammalian anatomy that 

 further observations on the subject are extremely 

 desirable." Still, there is the statement of the woman, 

 who would not be either prejudiced or informed, in 

 the matter upon which her testimony is given. The 

 whale feeds upon cuttlefish. A specimen twenty-seven 

 feet long produced about 240 gallons of oil, and a fair 

 amount of spermaceti. 



As there is but a single known species of this genus 

 Berardius, the osteological characters will be described 

 under the present heading more in detail than was 

 thought requisite to define the genus. These details 

 are naturally taken from Sir W. Flower's memoir 

 upon the whale, but I have myself verified most of 

 them upon the actual skeleton in the Royal College 

 of Surgeons Museum. 



A striking peculiarity of this whale is the small 

 size of the head compared to the length of the verte- 

 bral column, and the large size of the individual 

 vertebrae, a feature which is, however, also very 

 noticeable in Mesoplodon. These proportions are 

 curiously suggestive of some of the extinct aquatic 

 Mosasaurians, as well as of some of the Dinosaurs. 



