Hyperoodon and Sperm Whale. 31 



were more fortunate, receiving 10 for the oily blubber in 

 addition to the exhibition fees. The boss on the head of this 

 Nore animal contained much limpid oil (pure sperm), which 

 un fortunately got mixed up with the dirtier blubber. Clarified 

 Hyperoodon oil, on analysis, shews the closest similarity to 

 sperm oil, being a trifle paler. However, at the date mentioned 

 the market price of the former was 24, and of the latter 48 

 per tan. 



The Hyperoodon* is recorded in our waters nea,r Maldon 

 (Black water) circa 1717; above London Bridge, 1783; oft' 

 Whitstable, 1860, and Nore and Barking supra. Some years 

 ago a Hyperoodon (?) run a tilt at Dover pier. The shock to 

 the rammer was fatal, and the dead body was afterwards got 

 oft' the North Foreland. (Webb, op. cit.) 



The Hyperoodon's food is chiefly cuttle-fish, and such 

 proved to be the contents in the Whitstable and in the Nore 

 examples. The fleshy substance of both octopus and squids is 

 often so digested as to be unrecognisable, but the horny beaks 

 and " cuttle-bone " attest their favourite diet. 



(8.) The CACHALOT, or Sperm Whale (Physeter macro- 

 cephalus). Although this usually immense whale (attaining when 

 adult a size of from 30 towards 70 or 80 feet) is often regarded 

 as a tropical, South Sea, and Antarctic form, yet it is widely 

 distributed. It is found regularly roaming in the North 

 Atlantic, though in that area much scarcer than the southern 

 regions. It seems to follow the Gulf Stream, has frequently 

 got stranded in Scotland and the Orkneys, and at wide intervals 

 of time has come into the North Sea, and coursed southwards 

 along the English East Coast. It is now over a century ago 

 since, on two separate occasions, quite a number of enormous 

 male sperm whales were, after a storm, cast ashore dead on the 



* In possessing a back fin, and in shape generally, the Hyperoodon when young 

 has considerable resemblance to some of the Beaked Dolphins ; but the head of the 

 male, with increasing age, assumes by degrees the remarkably swollen, blunted contour 

 belonging to the Cachalot. The latter, however, is devoid of back fin, having a kind 

 of low hump instead. Consequently, in these and other skeletal characters, Hj-peroo- 

 doii is regarded as an intermediate form. The extraordinary change in the shape 

 of its head with age has been well illustrated by Capt. David Gray, a renowned Arctic 

 whaler, whose observations thereon, with Prof. Flower's remarks on the genus, are 

 published in F.Z.S., 1882. 



