57 



Middle Bone — Longest side 



Opposite side to same . . . 



Shortest or triquetral side 



Opposite side to same . . . . 

 Exterior Bone —Articulating side 



Longest side 



Curved side 



Shortest side 



We have thus passed in review the several parts of a 

 cetacean whose bony structure comes very near that of the 

 common sperm whale. Nevertheless, its external form 

 demonstrates how little importance is to be attached to most 

 of those characters which have been hitherto considered by 

 Lacepede, Cuvier, and other great zoologists, to be ordinate. 

 Here, for instance, we have a sperm whale, with a short 

 moderately sized head, and a depressed snout like that of a 

 dolphin, with a dolphin's falcate dorsal fin, and single blow- 

 hole situated in the middle of the head, at the base of the 

 snout. As for the want of teeth in the upper jaw, it has 

 already been shown to be common among dolphins. 



The discovery of the Euphysetes Grayii is useful in many 

 respects. It shows the error of the two brothers Cuvier in 

 discrediting the existence of the black fish of the northern 

 hemisphere ; it shows the mistake of Professor Bell in 

 assigning the black fish of our whalers to the same genus as 

 the common sperm whale ; it shows, at the same time, the 

 accuracy of the ancient descriptions of the black fish by Sir 

 Robert Sibbald and Otho Fabricius*; and finally, the 

 shrewdness of Mr. Gray, in eliciting from such a mass of 

 confusion so much correct information respecting an animal 



* It is very possible, nay, probable, that th*> black fish of Otho Fabricius 

 is a different species from that of Sir R. Sibbald, particularly if it be true 

 that the former has only 22 teeth in all; for the latter has 21 teeth on each 

 side of under jaw, making 42 in all. 



