208 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST, [Vol. 



VI. 



third larger." He was both surprised and amused when I read 

 to him the account from the Canadian Magazine which I have 

 already given. The obvious difference between the sperm whale 

 and the common is, tliat the sperm has a dorsal fin, and when the 

 water is smooth the projection or hump is seen two or three feet 

 above the surface. Its throat is also large, so that it would have 

 no difficulty in swallowing a man. The Mysticetus or common 

 whale, on the other hand, has neither dorsal fin or hnmp, and its 

 gullet, as has been already said, is exceedingly small, not more 

 than 1^ inches in diameter. . 



According to my admeasurement, corroborated by Mr. Gregory, 

 as the whale lay on the beach at ' Patrick's Hole,' he was sixty- 

 five feet long, the fluke of his tail twelve feet, his jaw fifteen feet. 

 From the condition he was in, I could not measure his breadth. 

 When the skeleton was subsequently brought to the Police Wharf 

 I had an opportunity of verifying, at any rate to my own satis- 

 faction, the correctness of my first measure. The jaw bone, as it 

 lay on the wharf stripped of all covering, measured exactly 

 fourteen feet six inches. I felt justified from this fact in con- 

 sidering that my other measurements had been equally correct. 

 Taking his length, then, at sixty-five feet, he was twenty-three 

 feet lono-er than the one killed at Montreal in 1823, and five feet 

 larger than the extreme length given by De Kay to the Mystice- 

 tus. A whale of such a size under ordinary circumstances should 

 have yielded about sixty barrels of oil ; this one only gave six, 

 which is endeavoured to be accounted for by the supposition that 

 he was aged, diseased, and worn out. May it not have been 

 possible that having strayed from his feeding grounds, and having 

 wandered up the St. Lawrence, where I believe he would have to 

 depend for his subsistence on shrimps and medusae alone, he may 

 have died from simple inanition. At any rate there was no mark 

 of violence on his body, and Mr. Chabot's brother, who was sent 

 to claim the whale as killed by his harpoon, failed to trace any 

 wound or to find the harpoon, as he had expected. The skeleton 

 has been well cleaned, and is very nearly complete, though the 

 thin bones of the skull have been considerably fractured. It is 

 still in the possession of Mr. Gregory, who has been more desir- 

 ous of promoting science than enriching himself by the preserva- 

 tion of this splendid skeleton. We trust that some of our scien- 

 tific bodies may make an efibrt to secure it, so that it may not be 

 permitted to be sent out of the Province. 



