3/8 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
sea. Another tale involved the birds of the Maldive Islands, a group 
of coral atolls in the Indian Ocean. Barbosa says that the natives 
here believed that “there are certain great fowls which alight on the 
cliffs and rocks of the sea, and there drop this ambergris, where it is 
tanned and softened by the wind, the sun and the rain, and pieces both 
great and small are torn by storms and tempests and fall into the sea 
until they are found or washed up on the strands or swallowed by 
whales.” 
SPERM WHALE SOLE SOURCE 
Just why the whale was regarded as incapable of manufacturing 
ambergris by himself seems unaccountable. And yet we know now 
that he is the sole source of this strange material. Precisely how it 
is formed is still a matter of conjecture, but it turns up in the intestine 
of the sperm whale, Physeter catodon, in the form of unattached 
lumps of varying size. 
There is a good case to be made for the theory that squid, or cuttle- 
fish, are connected with the production of ambergris, since the parrot- 
like beaks of these animals are usually found imbedded in the lumps. 
Squid beaks do not form a nucleus around which fecal material is 
impacted, as has been stated, since the beaks are found in any position 
in the mass—and are sometimes missing entirely. 
Other early writers declared that ambergris was the hardened feces 
of the whale. Dr. Schwediawer in 1738, stated, for example, that 
“We may therefore define ambergris as the preternaturally hardened 
dung or feces of the sperm whale, mixed with some indigestible relics 
of its food.” 
This idea has been regarded by many recent writers with about the 
same amusement as the theories about Madagascar birds, yet Dr. Rob- 
ert Clarke, the English whale expert, says, “I believe that Dr. Schwe- 
diawer was, quite simply, correct * * * Local increase in water 
absorption by the large intestine and the chemical transformation 
enacted by the resident intestinal bacteria, probably each play their 
part in the formation of ambergris from feces impacted around some 
matrix of indigestible material.” 
More observation is required on this point before any definitive 
statement about the exact manner of formation of ambergris can be 
made. The whale producing ambergris is not necessarily sick, as has 
been said, since perfectly normal whales have yielded lumps of this 
substance. Another theory, that only male whales produce ambergris, 
has also been shown to be false. 
When ambergris is cast out by the whale it is usually in the form 
of stones or pebbles, rounded by the movement of the intestines. In 
the sea and on the shore it is usually broken up before it can be recog- 
