268 WHALES AND DOLPHINS 



flukes, has a vertical height about double the transverse 

 dimension. The pectoral flippers are tapering, not rounded 

 as in the Sperm Whale, and are about one-sixth of the body 

 length. 



The blowhole, as described by Sir Richard Owen, ' is cres- 

 centic, but curves obliquely from the mid line outward and 

 backward with the convexity turned forward and to the left 

 and the angles or ' cresses ' directed backward and to the 

 right " 



The teeth, of which there are 9 to 14 pairs in the lower jaw, 

 are pointed, slender and curved.. They fit into sockets in the 

 tissues of the upper jaw when the mouth is closed. Very rarely 

 a pair of teeth have been found in the upper jaw. 



The body colour is black on the back and light grey or pinkish 

 on the under surface. 



The Pigmy Sperm grows tc a length of 9 to 13 feet, but the 

 size at which it is fully grown has been partly responsible for 

 the recognition of more than one species. " Kogia breviceps," 

 says Sir Sidney Harmer, " appears to be fully adult at less 

 than 10 feet, but K. macleayi, which I am inclined to regard as 

 distinct, on the evidence of cranial characters, appears to 

 reach a somewhat greater length." 



The Pigmy Sperm has a wide distribution ; stranded speci- 

 mens have been recorded from New Zealand, Australia. Indo- 

 China, India, South Africa, the east and west coasts of North 

 America, and in Europe from France, Portugal and Holland. 



Little is known about its breeding habits. The Dutch 

 specimen found on December 13th, 1925, was a female 9 feet 

 8 inches long, and had a foetus about 8 inches long. Another 

 9-foot female, stranded on Trivandrum beach on December 

 19th, 1924, had a foetus 9 inches long. Although certain 

 conclusions cannot be drawn from so few data, the close 

 correspondence in the size of the foetuses at the same time of 

 year suggests that in this genus breeding may be restricted to 

 definite periods in the year. 



There is as little information about feeding as breeding, but 

 there is the record of the stomach contents of the specimen 

 stranded on the French coast consisting of the remains of a 

 shore crab and beaks of cuttlefishes. 



It is not a very commonly occurring species, and is without 



