MOUTH AND NOSE 



work, and in the center is liquid spermaceti oil. This spermaceti is 

 very different from the blubber oil, just as is the case with respect to the 

 adipose cushion of other odontocetes. The spermaceti organ is said to 

 be a closed, ductless system, but it must be supplied by blood vessels. 

 In a diagram with which H. C. Raven has kindly furnished me it is 

 shown as resting for its entire length upon the right nasal passage, so 

 phenomenally expanded in lateral direction. Diverticula of this passage 

 are situated directly in front of and behind it, so when the passage is ex- 

 panded with air, the spermaceti organ would seem to be suspended upon 

 a pneumatic cushion upon three of its sides. This act is not as difficult 

 as might be supposed ; for it is not improbable that the organ is lighter 

 than the water which it displaces. Occasionally, because of poor con- 

 dition of the animal or for some unknown reason, the spermaceti case 

 is empty, but ordinarily it contains up to 15 barrels of oil. Shortly be- 

 fore my visit in 1926 to the whaling station at Trinidad, California, a 

 large sperm whale was captured which yielded 27 barrels of oil, pre- 

 sumably from the case and the adipose cushion combined. The size 

 of the spermaceti organ and junk should be emphasized. In a large 

 male the head constitutes two-fifths of the total length, so the cephalic 

 fatty equipment must be at least one-third the length of the entire animal, 

 or say 20 feet. It may be noted in this connection that in drawings of 

 this whale the end of the snout is usually represented as truncated and 

 ending even with the tip of the lower jaws, whereas all photographs 

 show that the snout is bluntly and evenly rounded, and that in large 

 males it projects for several feet beyond the lower jaws. Conditions are 

 evidently relatively the same in the pygmy sperm whale (Kogia) except 

 that the perfectly formed spermaceti organ is very small, and the Ziphii- 

 dae — notably Hyperoodori — are said to have some sort of fatty frontal 

 organ, but precise descriptions are lacking. 



We know nothing about the manner in which this great cephalic 

 oil equipment began to develop except by inference. In other odonto- 

 cetes the adipose cushion is situated in front of the blowhole, and the 

 junk of the sperm whale is probably homologous with this. The present 

 conformation of the nasal passages in the cachalot is to me strongly sug- 

 gestive of the theory that the spermaceti organ is not homologous with 

 any part of the adipose cushion of other toothed whales, but is a distinct 

 development, originally having had its inception back of the blowhole, 

 which latter was forced farther and farther forward as the organ increased 

 in size. This belief, however, is not shared by H. C. Raven (MS) who 

 is of the opinion that the spermaceti organ is the part that is homologous 



[105} 



