Thus we see at once that while Cuvier's London skeleton 

 and the Sydney one come wonderfully close to each other in 

 the proportions of the head to the whole length ; the York- 

 shire skeleton having a head so large in proportion to the 

 length, must belong to a different species. If the forty-nine 

 feet seven inches include the length of the intervertebral 

 cartilages, the disparity will be still greater. As it is, 

 according to the Yorkshire proportions, the Sydney skeleton, 

 which is thirty feet four and three-quarter inches long, ought 

 to have a head upwards of eleven feet long. Instead of 

 which, this skull is only nine and a-half feet long ; so that the 

 head in our sperm whale is consequently shorter in proportion 

 to the body than Beale's whale. It is the same in Cuvier's 

 London whale ; yet the figure of the sperm whale, as given 

 by Frederic Cuvier, and which appears to be that of the 

 sperm whale of his brother and of the Northern Atlantic 

 Ocean, dififers from the figure of the Pacific sperm whale 

 given by Beale, in having a larger head ; so that the York- 

 shire skeleton could not possibly have belonged to the same 

 whale as that of which Beale made a drawing in the Pacific. 

 It is true that Beale and others consider the difference to 

 result from a defect in F. Cuvier's figure, but I think reasons 

 have been now adduced for our believing that the drawings 

 have been taken from two different species. Of this, indeed, 

 I shall advance further proof hereafter. 



The principal materials which Cuvier possessed for laying 

 the foundation of all our knowledge of the osteology of the 

 sperm whale, were the head of an animal cast ashore at 



