Natural History in the English Counties, 201 



with a small portion of oil ; upon standing some time it concretes into 

 nearly a solid mass. The head of the Whitstable whale was, as it were, 

 tapped by driving a bar of wood into it, and the spermaceti flowed out in 

 a full stream. This substance is likewise diffused through various parts of 

 the body in a chain of membranous sacs, which communicate with each 

 other like the air cells of birds; and is also, in small proportion, mingled 

 with the general oil of the blubber. 



The spiracles, nostrils, or breathing holes, form another remarkable cha- 

 racter of the Cetacea; but their structure, which enables the animals to 

 blowt or eject water in a fountain, when they rise to the surface to breathe, 

 is too well known to need description. In the present species they unite 

 into one canal, which opens near the muzzle. After being wounded, much 

 blood was mixed with the water spouted by our unfortunate animal. 



The mouth, also, affords several marked peculiarities. In the ^alae'nae 

 the place of teeth is supplied by an apparatus which can by no means 

 answer a purpose at all similar. This consists of a number of fringe-like 

 plates on each side of the upper jaw. These plates constitute the tvhale- 

 bone of commerce: their number sometimes amounts to 500. The ca- 

 chalot, on the contrary, is furnished on each side with from nineteen to 

 thirty, according to its age, of strong but short and comparatively blunt 

 teeth; but even here an anomaly exists, they being found in the lower jaw 

 only. The upper is covered with a callous gum, as hard as cartilage, and 

 its edge is indented in sockets for the reception of the teeth of the lower. 

 Arguing theoretically, it has been supposed that this structure is only fit 

 for crushing the shells of crustaceous animals ; but the cachalots are, un- 

 fortunately for this hypothesis, well known to be truly and tyrannically 

 carnivorous, seizing every thing in their way, and, in the words of an author * 

 before quoted, " covering the seas with blood, and pursuing their prey with 

 a bitterness and pertinacity that has scarcely any parallel in animated 

 nature; " in fact, being the insatiate tigers of the ocean. If this predacious 

 habit were, indeed, a disputed question, the present specimen would not tend 

 to decide it, as in his stomach was found only a little fucus, which he had 

 probably snatched in haste from the surface of the waves, with the vain 

 hope of satisfying his hunger and exhaustion, during his painful and pro- 

 tracted chase. 



We have had the opportunity of inspecting an eye of this animal at the 

 Zoological Society, and find it precisely according with the descriptions 

 given of it by Cuvier and other comparative anatomists. Its structure is 

 extremely curious. The longest diameter of the whole globe, which is 

 flattened anteriorly, does not exceed 3 in., and that of the iris little more 

 than one. The cavity containing the crystalline and vitreous humours is 

 small and completely spherical, the great bulk of the eye being composed 

 of the sclerotic coat, which is as dense and hard as cartilage. The lens is 

 not larger than that of a haddock, and is spherical like those of fish. The 

 optic nerve is the size of a goose quill, and is singularly surrounded by a 

 very peculiar, soft, spongy substance, like finely reticulated cellular mem- 

 brane. This substance is rather more than an inch in diameter, and is 

 enclosed in a sheath as dense as the coat of an artery. The muscles of the 

 eye are not distinct as in quadrupeds, but surround the whole ball like a 

 purse, radiating from behind the edge of the cornea. The whole anterior 

 part of the eye was destroyed. 



We have few additional particulars to add, and those are from the 

 observations of Mr. Gould. The eyes were sunk into, or rather surrounded 

 by, blubber of nearly a foot in thickness (they were probably driven into 

 that situation by the efforts of the fishermen to blind the animal); the 



* Grifiith. 

 Vol. II. -- No. 7. v 



