39 



by sifting the sand, and offeringpremiums to residents near the 

 spot for the recovery of the smaller bones, 1 have been able 

 to collect an almost perfect skeleton. Indeed, it may be said 

 to be complete, with the exception of the sternum, some 

 phalanges of the digits of left paddle and one side, of which 

 we are deficient in many of the ribs. 



The skeleton, without the invertebral cartilages, is about 

 eight and a-quarter feet long, while the skull from extremity 

 of snout to the hinder edge of the occipital condyles, is sixteen 

 and a half inches long. The great principle on which this 

 skull has been constructed, is the same which prevails in the 

 more enormous sperm whale described in the preceding 

 chapter. There is the same want of symmetry, the same 

 distortion of the component bones, the same concavity of the 

 upper surface of the head, formed by the enormous develop- 

 ment of the base of the maxillaries, and finally, the same 

 convexity of the roof of the mouth. Here, moreover, we 

 have some anomalies that render the formation more diver- 

 gent from that of dolphins, than even is that of the skull of a 

 true sperm. For instance, owing to the great breadth of the 

 vomer, we have a snout forming from the notches almost an 

 equilateral triangle, but with its apex blunt and emarginate ; 

 the point of the snout is thus short, truncated, and emarginate, 

 instead of being long and sharp as in the true sperm. Here, 

 also, the inter maxillaries barely pass beyond the point of the 

 maxillaries ; although, as in the true sperm whale, the right in- 

 ter maxillary mounts nearly to the occipital, high above the right 

 nostril, which is, as it were, almost carved out of it. A great 

 distinction is here perceived from the structure of the genus 

 Catodon, for instead of a perpendicular and semicircular wall, 

 formed by the maxillaries and doubled by the occipital, form- 

 ing the back of the great cavity on the summit of the head, 

 we see this cavity, although it is completely formed at the 

 back by the maxillaries, divided as it were into two unequal 

 parts by a ridge of bone which is twisted towards the left side 

 of the head. This prominent, thick, and sinuated ridge, 

 which in the middle of the forehead separates the two unequal 



