63 



Premising that I am in Mr. Gray's and M. Cuvier'scase of 

 never having seen a black-fish or even any part of one, I shall 

 now venture to offer my own definition of the group of Cato- 

 dontina as more accurate than that given by my predecessors 

 as the character of the 



Family CATODONTIDiE. 



Upper surface of massive skull concave for the reception of 

 spermaceti. Nostrils enormously disproportionate in size, the 

 left one being the largest, and the nasal bones as well as those 

 of the face generally, being thereby unsymmetrical and 

 distorted. Blowhole externally single. (In all ?) Branches 

 of the toothed lower jaw united in front by a long symphysis, 

 which is always considerably narrower than the toothless upper 

 jaw. Teeth of under jaw conical, hollow like those of a 

 crocodile, and fitting into cavities formed in the gum of the 

 upper jaw. 



It has been more hastily conceded than truly said, that the 

 age of large animals has passed away — that In those prec-Ada- 

 mite eras of time which form the principal subject of geological 

 study, the vis creatrix acted if not more complexly, at least 

 on a larger scale than at present — that the Megalosaurus, for 

 instance, was larger than the Mastodon, and the Mastodon 

 again, larger than any animal production of our own dege- 

 nerate time. Many enthusiastic admirers of the world's 

 infancy, therefore, appear to have overlooked the actual 

 existence of an order of mammals which, according to geolo- 

 gical evidence appeared first on the face of our globe so lately 

 as since the cretacean period. Yet1:his order now is apparently 

 as numerous in species as in any previous sera, and con- 

 tains in it the living great northern rorqual ( Balcenoi^tera 

 physalus of Gray) an animal larger than any extinct geologi- 

 cal species known, and probably the very " Baloena Britan- 

 nica^^ which Juvenal fixed on as his standard of cetacean 

 hugeness. 



