54 



is about one-thii'cl of the length of the Itody. very massive, liigli and trun- 

 cated in front, owing to its liuge size and remarliable form mainly to the 

 great accumulation of a peculiarly modified form of fatty tissue, filling 

 the large hollow on the upper surface of the skull. The oil contained in 

 (he cells in this great cavity, when refined, yields Spermaceti, and the 

 thick covering of blubber, which everywhere envelopes the body, produces 

 the valuable spei"m-oil of commerce. The single blowhole is a longitiidinal 

 slit, placed at the upper and interior extremity of the head to the left side of 

 the middle line. The opening of the mouth is on the underside of the head, 

 considerably behind the end of the snout. The lower jaw is extremely 

 narrow, and has on each side from twenty to twenty-five stout conical teetli, 

 which furnish ivory of good quality. Tlie upper teeth are quite rudimentary 

 and buried in the gum. The pectoral fin or flipper is short, broad, and 

 truncated, and the dorsal fin a mere low protuberance. The general color 

 of the surface is black above and grey below, the L-olors gradually shad- 

 ing into each other. The food of the sperm whale consists mainly of 

 various species of cephalapods, but they also eat flsli of considerable size. 

 The substance called "ambergris", formerly used in medicine and now in 

 perfumery, is a concretion formed in the intestine of this whale, and is 

 found floating on the surface of the seas it inhabits. Its genuineness is 

 proved by the presence of the horny beaks of the ceplialopods on which the 

 whale feeds. The remaining Odontoceti are all animals of much smaller 

 size than the sperm whale, but to several of them the name "wliale" is 

 commonly applied. 



The Beluga or White whale is entirely northern in its range. Its name 

 "Beluga" is derived from the Russian and signifies white. The young 

 is blackish, the older whale a mottled, and finally a yellowish hue is 

 arrived at, which is gradually blanched to pui-e white. It reaches a length 

 of sixteen to twenty feet. It is a singular fact that these whales, unlike 

 many Cetacea, have a distinct noise which has earned for them the naine 

 of "Sea Canary". They live in companies and feed upon fish, ceplialopods 

 and Crustacea. Though this is a marine whale, it sometimes ascends rivers, 

 it is said, in pursuit of salmon. It has been known to ascend the Yukon 

 River for a distance of seven hundred miles. 



The Orca or Killer whales grow to a length of twenty to thirty feet. Tliey 

 are powerful, rapacious animals, and are the only whales that feed upon 

 their own kind and upon large prey. They are a species of rapacious, car- 

 nivorous whale, whose upper and lower jaws are armed with sharp, .saw- 

 like teeth. They are known as the tiger-hearted gladiators of the sea. The 

 Killer whale never hunts alone. It pursues its titanic quarry in couples 

 and trios, and sometimes in veritable wolf-like packs of a half dozen. I 

 witnessed one of these attacks in Queen Charlotte Sound. They have been 

 known to assault the largest whales of the sea. Burns tells of an attack 

 of this nature upon a large bowhead whale and Scammon of one upon a 

 Californian Grey whale which he witnessed. He says. "They made alter- 

 nate assaults upon the old whale and her offspring, finally killing the latter, 



