11 



whale is assuredly not the Kogia hremceps of Gray, for this 

 Cape of Good Hope whale is said to have the beak only as 

 long as its width at the notches. Neither is the Sydney 

 whale a species belonging to Gray's genus Physeter ; for this 

 last has its blow hole opening on the middle of the top of the 

 head, instead of opening at the upper termination of the 

 snout, as in true sperm whales. 



Beale's Yorkshire skeleton has, as before mentioned, a 

 skull eighteen feet and half an inch long, Avhile the extreme 

 width of it was measured by him to be eight fe^t four inches. 

 Now, according to this proportion, the Sydney skull, nine 

 feet six inches long, ought to have a breadth of only four feet 

 four and a-half inches, whereas its actual breadth is five feet 

 four inches. In other words, in the Sydney animal, the head 

 is nearly one-fifth its whole width broader than the Yorkshire 

 cachalot, which at the same time, as was before shown, has 

 proportionally a longer head. As might have been expected 

 from the foregoing remarks, the Sydney skeleton has a pro- 

 portionally shorter under jaw; for comparing the length of 

 the Yorkshire skull with that of its under jaw, we find that 

 the Sydney under jaw, ought, in like manner, to be eight feet 

 ten inches long, whereas, it is only seven feet eight inches. 



In all the Catodontidce, or family of sperm whales, there is 

 an early junction of the two sides of the under jaw ; so that 

 from the articulating portion of the base of the skull, the two 

 branches converge in nearly straight lines to a point where 

 this junction takes place, and then both extend anteriorly, in 

 the form of a subcylindrical symphysis. This structure is 

 not common in Cetacea, but may be seen in the Soosoo, or 

 Dolphin of the Ganges, the genus Platcmista of Cuvier, 

 who, therefore, ascribes to such fresh water dolphins a certain 

 affinity with sperm whales. Perhaps, however, this relation 

 ought more correctly to be termed, an analogy. 



In the very learned introduction to Cuvier's Comparative 

 Anatomy of the Sperm Whale, we find that Sir R. Sibbald, in 

 1689, described a specimen cast ashore on the coast of Scot- 

 land, as having forty-two teeth. In 1723, Theodore Hasseus 



