576 CETACEA. 



Northern Atlantic Oceans, but they occasionally migrate into more 

 southern regions, and are, every year, found in the neighborhood of the 

 Faroe Islands, and sometimes on the Scotch coasts, even entering the 

 mouths of rivers. They are rare in the Greenland waters, but fre- 

 quent at the entrance of Davis Straits. Their habits are little known, 

 owing to their being so often confounded with the dolphins. When they 

 blow, they send out a thin low spout four or five times in succession. 

 Cuttle-fish and squids form their chief food. 



The Bottle-nosed Whale is often stranded on the coasts of Europe. 

 The earliest account of it we have is a description of one taken near 

 Harwich in England, in 17 17, and measuring fourteen feet. Hunter 

 describes one caught above London Bridge in 1783, which was twenty- 

 one feet in length, and he mentions the skull of one which must have 

 been thirty feet in length. 



GENUS XIPHIUS. 



The solitary species of this genus is found in the Northern Atlantic. 



The XiPHlUS, Xiphius Soiverbicnsis, is so named after the well-known 

 naturalist Sowerby, who figured and described the animal in the British 

 Miscellany. His description was founded upon a specimen that was cast 

 ashore upon the estate of Mr. J. Brodie, in Elginshire. The skull of this 

 individual was preserved by Mr. Sowerby in his museum, and after his 

 death it was placed by Dr. Buckland in the Anatomical Museum at 

 Oxford. As it is so valuable a specimen, it has been industriously multi- 

 plied by means of plaster-casts, which have been distributed to various 

 scientific institutions. 



The length of the creature was sixteen feet, and its girth at the 

 largest part of the body was eleven feet. The head is small, narrow, 

 and pointed, and the lower-jaw is longer, blunter, and wider than the 

 upper-jaw, so that when the mouth is closed, the lower-jaw receives the 

 upper. In the upper-jaw there are two depressions corresponding with 

 the teeth, and permitting the perfect closing of the mouth. The color 

 of the animal is black on the upper surface and gray below, and is 

 remarkable for the pellucid and satin-like character of the skin, which 

 reflects the rays of the sun to a considerable distance. The body is 

 marked hke watered silk; this effect is produced by a vast number of 



