150 ZOOLOGY. 



respiration cannot be performed through the mouth, 

 but only through the spiracles, or nostrils; nor can 

 any tones, approaching to a voice, be emitted, excepting 

 through the spiracles, which are encumbered with 

 valves, and evidently badly adapted for the transmission 

 of sound. Scoresby assures us that the Greenland 

 Whale has no voice ; and I have frequently noticed the 

 Sperm Whale, Black-fish, and many kinds of Dolphin, 

 suffering from extreme alarm and injury, (and when it 

 might reasonably be expected they would utter cries if 

 they had the power to do so,) but have never heard any 

 sound proceed from their lungs, beyond that attending 

 on ordinary respiration. 



It is yet an unsettled point, whether the spiracles of 

 spouting- whales have an office solely respiratory, or if 

 they are also of use to eject the water received into the 

 mouth together with food. In favour of the opinion 

 that the spout is nothing more than the vapour of the 

 breath, we may advance, the uniform appearance^ of 

 the jets, and regularity of their repetition, corresponding 

 with the ordinary rhyme of respiration; their being 

 always present, and successively continued, as long as 

 the whale remains on the surface of the water ; although 

 the animal may be at this time unoccupied with food, 

 or even swimming with velocity, its head raised above 

 the surface of a calm sea, and its mouth shut ; the 

 character of the spout, which resembles a cloud, or 

 mist, and can in no way be compared to a volume of 

 water; the fact, that seals, and other aquatic mammalia, 

 as well as the herbivorous cetaceans, seize and devour 

 their food in the water, and rise to the surface to 

 breathe ; yet do not spout, and have no peculiar pro- 

 vision for freeing their mouth from water, if any water 

 be received. In the case, also, of many spouting- 



