2o8 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



different from those on the other. This asymmetry, moreover, is car- 

 ried out to the surface, so that there is only one S-shaped blowhole 

 pointing forward and on the left side of the snout. As a result, the 

 spout of the sperm is very distinctive, being a rather feeble forward- 

 curving jet. 



The general conformity of the rest of the animal is more easily 

 appreciated in an illustration than by verbal description (see Appen- 

 dix E). Instead of a dorsal fin there is a series of low bumps along the 

 latter half of the back, and the flippers are rather small but very wide 

 and blunt. They contain the usual five mammalian digits, but the 

 finger bones of all are multiplied. The tail is remarkable, being deep- 

 notched in the middle and the flukes having large flaps on their inner 

 hind edges, one lying over the other. The skin, which is jet black in 

 life, is not much thicker than a sheet of carbon paper and is very sus- 

 ceptible to abrasions, whereby some very peculiar facts have been 

 brought to light and then, we regret to state, scrupulously ignored. 



As mentioned before, the principal food of the sperms is squid, 

 though they are also known to take cuttles, octopus, spiny lobsters, 

 and even some larger fish such as sharks. The largest squid known, 

 the great Architeuthis, also described previously, has, like all of the 

 octopus group, suckers on the inside of its eight tentacles and on the 

 pads at the end of its two long feeler-arms. These suckers contain 

 bony rings bearing teeth and looking like little coronets. The largest 

 rings from the largest squids have a diameter of about four inches, 

 yet scars left by such suckers on the skin of captured sperm whales 

 have measured over eighteen inches in diameter. It took several cen- 

 turies for zoologists to accept the existence of the kraken, as the 

 Norse fishermen had always called the Architeuthis, and its size still 

 seems somewhat shocking. The mere suggestion that there might be 

 forms almost five times greater in the depths of the oceans is re- 

 garded as so outrageous as to be altogether taboo. Judging by the 

 size of certain sharks' teeth that have been found in a fossilized con- 

 dition, however, even this would appear by no means to be the limit 

 of size to which marine creatures can grow. 



The sperm whale has between twenty and thirty huge, peglike 

 teeth embedded in a band of gristle which is in turn set in a trough 

 running the length of each side of the lower jaw only. These teeth 

 close into holes in similar bands of immensely tough, horny tissue 



