200 Natural History in the English Counties 



Paracelsus encoiirageth, ordure makes the best musk, and from the most 

 fetid substances may be drawn the most odoriferous essences, all, that had 

 not Vespasian's nose, might boldly swear here was a fit subject for such 

 extractions." 



Messrs. Enderby and Sturge liberally gave the men 40 guineas in ad- 

 dition to the original bargain, and they also realised 40/. by exhibiting the 

 whale on the beach ; so that the crews of the boats (which, according to a 

 second account in the Essex Herald,were seven in number) were eventually 

 well recompensed for their trouble and risk. The skeleton was presented 

 by those gentlemen to the museum of the Zoological Society; but govern- 

 ment having put in a claim to the " royal fish," the whole proceeds of it 

 are under arrest, and the bones now lie whitening on the shore. 



Although resembling a fish in their form and in being entirely confined 

 to an aquatic life, the whales, in common with the dolphins and narwhal, are 

 similar in formation and consequent habits, reproduction, &c., to terrestrial 

 quadrupeds, except that they are deficient in hinder extremities, having 

 only rudiments of the pelvic bones, not attached to the spine, and having 

 some of the muscles proper to the thighs, &c. united to form the tail, which 

 is of amazing power, and so deadly a weapon of offence, that a large boat 

 has been upset by a single blow with it. Their ribs (which are fourteen in 

 number in the spermaceti whale) are of course large, but not remarkably 

 thick. One of them is exhibited in St. Mary's church, Redcliffe, near 

 Bristol, as that of the dun cow slain by Guy, Earl of Warwick ! The an- 

 terior extremities, although appearing externally like fins, the office of which 

 they serve, are composed of the same bones as those of other Mammalia, 

 but those of the arm and fore-arm are short and flattened, and the latter 

 possess no power of rotation. The bones of the wrist are also flattened, 

 and joined together by cartilage ; there is no opposable thumb, and the 

 phalanges of the fingers are unequal in number. 



The heads of these animals offer the most remarkable departures, in form 

 and structure, from the usual type. Both in the whales and cachalots they 

 are of enormous and uncouth size : hence the specific appellation of the 

 latter is Macroc^phalus. In them they are abruptly truncated in front, 

 from which character is derived the common name, blunt-headed. From 

 the head the body tapers gradually to the tail (which is broad, and placed 

 horizontally), having, like fish, no proper neck, the seven cervical vertebrae 

 being very thin, and crowded together so as to form virtually but one bone. 

 From this description of the outline of the animal, it is evident that it is a 

 complete wedge; but, in contradiction to the usual laws of mechanics, this 

 wedge, or cone, moves with its base foremost, and, which is most astonish- 

 ing, proving how seldom analogical theories should be implicitly relied on 

 when applied to vital action, moves with the most astonishing rapidity, 

 literally glancing through the yielding water like lightning through the 

 air. This shows the utility and application of the powerful tail. 



This particular formation of the head affords room for that remarkable 

 deposit of spermaceti which is contained between two large rising plates, 

 composed of expansions of the frontal, temporal, and occipital bones. The 

 space between these plates is divided longitudinally into two parts, which, 

 from their vast size, have been aptly compared to caverns. This peculiar 

 secretion has been ignorantly mistaken for the brain, the place of which 

 it apparently occupies, that organ being very small, and situated far back in 

 the head. 



Viewing the cranium, when divested of its integuments, &c., as seen in the 

 beautiful preparation of the skeleton in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, and 

 in one of a head only in the British Museum, this space is not unlike the 

 body of a large gig, or cabriolet. In this the greater portion of the sper- 

 maceti is contained in a fluid state during the animal's vitality, and mixed 



