184 MAMMALIA. 



animal to raise its head and throat above the water for that purpose : there 

 are no salient laminae in the glottis, and the voice is reduced to a simple 

 lowing. They have no vestige of hairs, but their whole body is covered 

 with a smooth skin, under which is that thick layer of blubber abounding 

 in oil, the principal object for which they are pursued. Their mamms are 

 near the anus, and their fins are incapable of grasping. 



Their stomach is divided into five and sometimes into seven distinct 

 sacs ; instead of one single spleen, they have several, small and globular ; 

 those which are possessed of teeth, have them all conical and alike ; they 

 do not chew their food, but swallow it rapidly. 



Two small bones suspended in the flesh, near the anus, are the only 

 vestiges of posterior extremities which remain in them. 



Several have a vertical fin on the back, composed of a tendinous sub- 

 stance, but unsupported by bone. Their eyes, flattened in front, have a 

 thick and solid sclerotica ; (a) the teguments of the tongue are soft and 

 smooth. 



These may be once more subdivided into two small tribes : those in 

 which the head bears the usual proportion to the body, and those in which 

 it is immoderately large. The first comprehends the Dolphins and the 

 Narwhals. 



DoLPHiNUs, Lin. 



The Dolphins have teeth in both jaws, all simple, and almost always 

 conical. They are the most carnivorous, and, in proportion to their size, 

 the most cruel of their order. They have no c«cum.* 



Delphinus, Cuv. 



The Dolphins, properly so called, have a convex forehead, and the 

 muzzle forming a kind of bill, in front of the head, more slender than 

 the rest. 



D. delphis, L. ; Lacep. Get. pi. xiii. f. 1. (The Common Dol- 

 phin). The snout depressed and armed on each side of the jaw with 

 from forty-two to forty-seven teeth, slender, arcuate, and pointed ; 

 black above, white beneath ; from eight to ten feet in length. This 

 animal, found in numerous bodies in every sea, and celebrated for the 

 velocity of its motion, which sometimes precipitates it on the decks 

 of vessels, appears really to have been the Dolphins of the antients. 

 The entire organization of the brain seems to indicate the docility 

 they attributed to it. 



* There is no family of the Mammalia more difficult to observe, of which we have 

 more imperfect descriptions, and whose synonymes are more fluctuating than that 

 of the Cetacea. I have endeavoured to select authentic species. 



6^ (a) This is the next covering of the eye after the outer one w hich we see ; it 

 is the hardest envelope of the eye. — Eng. Ed. 



