54 
is about one-third of the length of the body, very massive, high and trun- 
cated in front, owing to its huge size and remarkable 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 
the cells in this great cavity, when refined, yields Spermaceti, and the 
thick covering of blubber, which everywhere envelopes the body, produces 
the valuable sperm-oil of commerce. The single blowhole is a longitudinal 
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 teeth, 
which furnish ivory of good quality. The 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 generai color 
of the surface is black above and grey below, the colors gradually shad- 
ing into each other. The food of the sperm whale consists mainly of 
various species of cephalapods, but they also eat fish 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 cephalopods 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 “whale” 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 pure white. It reaches a length 
of sixteen to twenty feet. It is a singular fact that these whaies, unlike 
many Cetacea, have a distinct noise which has earned for them the name 
of “Sea Canary’. They live in companies and feed upon fish, cephalopods 
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 Orea or Killer whales grow to a length of twenty to thirty feet. They 
are powerful, rapacious animals, and are the only whales that feed upon 
their own kind and upon large prey. They are a species of rapacions, 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. 3urns 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, 
