158 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



SPECIES II. 



PHYSETER CETADON, OR THE SMALL SPERMACETI 



WHALE.* 



By taking the teeth as the most certain characteristics 

 of different species, according to the opinion of most 

 naturalists, we shall easily distinguish this species from 

 the others. In this species the head is of a round form ; 

 the opening of the mouth is of a moderate size ; the 

 lower jaw is longer, but not so broad as the upper. It 

 is furnished with a row of teeth on each side ; and these 

 correspond to the cavities in the upper jaw which receive 

 them. Here we shall find a peculiar structure of the 

 teeth in this species ; for the teeth are curved and blunt, 

 and that part of the tooth which rises above the gum 

 has a greater thickness than where it is inserted into the 

 jaw ; each tooth is flat at the top, and marked with con- 

 centric lines. The longest are two inches in length, and 

 about an inch in circumference at its greatest thickness. 



Sibbald has mistaken the breathing-hole for nostrils, 

 which mistake seems to have arisen from the breathing- 

 hole being near the snout of the fish. 



This species chiefly inhabits the northern seas, though, 

 towards the end of the seventeenth century, 1 02 of this 

 species came on shore at Cairston in the Orkney Islands. 

 The longest was twenty-four feet. 



* Synonymes. — French le petit Cachalot ; Norwegian, Swine-Hual ; 

 Greenland, Kagutilik. 



