NATURE 



[November 3. 1910 



met with a few miles outside of Monaco. They 

 fought to the death, and when killed they were 



Fig. 2. — Statue of Prince Albert I. of M jnaco in the Museum 



a large mass of something came out of its mouth close 

 to the yacht and began slowly to sink. The Prince 

 at once jumped into the dinghey, and, with a 

 long landing net, retrieved the object before 

 it sank out of sight. The object is represented 

 in Fig. 5, and is a unique piece. It is a frag- 

 ment of the gigantic scaled cephalopod which 

 Prof. Joubin, who described it, named 

 Lepidoteiithis Grimaldii. 



A healthy cachalot is valued for the 

 spermaceti, or wax, which is contained in its 

 head, and a sick one is still more valued for 

 the ambergris which it may contain. This 

 curious substance, which has at all times been 

 so highly esteemed in pharmacy and per- 

 fumery, forms the subject of a very interesting 

 "Account of Ambergris " by Dr. Schweidawer* 

 which was read before the Royal Society on 

 February 13, 1783, and published in the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions, vol. Ixxiii., p. 220. 

 From his investigations it appears that amber- 

 gris is a by-product of an inflammation of the 

 intestine, which has probably been started by 

 the "beaks" of the cephalopods which it has 

 swallowed, for these are the invariable and 

 characteristic ingredient of all genuine amber- 

 gris. He further states that the whalers are 

 convinced that the cachalot feeds only on 

 squids, which, when unmutilated, must be of 

 great size. One whaler reported a case where 

 the whale in its death-throe rendered a single 

 tentacle, which, though incomplete from 

 having been partially digested, still measured 

 29 feet in length, and he held that this justifies 

 the common saying of the whalers that the 

 squids are the biggest fish in the sea. 



The work of the Prince amongst the toothed 

 Cetaceans has had an interesting sentimental 



towed in and beached on 

 what is now the hew 

 harbour of Monaco. 



Not far from the Orca 

 is a skeleton, Fig. 4, of 

 the best known of the 

 toothed Cetaceans, the 

 cachalot or sperm-whale. 

 It wgs not taken by the 

 Prince himself, but he 

 was present at its cap- 

 ture, and his' scientific 

 instinct enabled him to 

 seize an opportunity 

 which would probably 

 have been missed bv 

 another. The cachalot 

 had been struck by a 

 crew of whalers from Ter- 

 ceira, one of the islands 

 of the Azores. The 

 Prince followed the chase 

 in his yacht, and was 

 close to the animal when 

 it became evident that 

 its end had come. .At 

 this moment these ani- 

 mals always charge what- 

 ever they see, and in 

 their death agony they 

 usually render whatever 

 they have last eaten. 

 This animal charged the 

 charge did not get home. 



Fig. 3. — Skeleton of the great Crca killed by the Prince of Monaco near Monaco. 



Princesse Alice, but the 

 The animal stopped, and 



result. The combat of the " thrasher " and 

 whale,' so dear to the nautical mind, seems to 



the 

 be 



NO. 2140, VOL. 85] 



