784 



C E T A C E A. 



is fit for food and what is not, would lead us to 

 suppose that the function which this organ possesses, 

 whatever it may be, is a very powerful one, because 

 it is one upon which they must have considerable 

 dependence, indeed (in the case of the whalebone 

 whales, their only dependence) in that most import- 

 ant of all their functions, the finding: of their food. 

 The fact that the tongue is the largest, and also, to 

 all appearance, most endowed with sentient qualities 

 in the whalebone whales, which have the greatest 

 dependence upon it, as they do not in any case see 

 their food, is a strong corroboration of the view now 

 taken ; but we shall be better able to notice profitably 

 this part of the subject when we come to the enume- 

 ration of the several divisions of the order. 



The sense of hearing, even that of sounds not 

 naturally loud, is understood to be rather acute in 

 the cetacea. They have indeed no external conchoe 

 to their ears, as such an appendage would be rather 

 an inconvenience to them when they plunge in the 

 water; but otherwise, their ears are very well formed. 

 The auditory canal and the eustachian tube are both 

 of considerable, or rather of large diameter. The 

 labyrinth, the^ semicircular canals, the cochlea, the 

 vestibule, and the tympanum, are also well formed ; 

 and the little bones of the ear, the use of which in 

 any animal is not very well known, are very deli- 

 cately formed. The membrane which lines all the 

 sentient part of the ear is peculiarly delicate ; and 

 the bones which support the soft parts of that organ 

 are much more compact and solid than any others in 

 the body. The eustachian tube communicates both 

 with the mouth and the blow-holes ; and indeed, the 

 whole structure of the auditory organs indicates not 

 only an acute sense of hearing, but a strong proba- 

 bility that the animals hear through the vibrations of 

 the water when the head is wholly immersed in that 

 liquid. 



The eye of the cetacea is unquestionably a very 

 delicate organ. It is very small for the size, not 

 being larger than that of an ox, but it is exceedingly 

 well formed. There is one peculiarity of it ; whales 

 shed no tears, for they are not furnished with lacry- 

 mal glands ; but the frequent ablution of the eye in 

 salt water, which is one of the best applications to the 

 eyes even in man, may render the use of any saline 

 secretions for the eye itself quite unnecessary. There 

 is a firmness in some parts of the eye exceeding what 

 is met with in land animals ; the choroid coat is 

 more strongly united to the sclerotic, and the choroid 

 is in its own structure very vascular and fibrous, 

 indicating powerful action. The crystalline lens 

 resembles that of fishes, in being nearly spherical. 



System of Intcgumcntation. The skin of the cetacea 

 is worthy of considerable attention. It resembles, 

 in its general structure and composition, that of the 

 land mammalia, consisting of an epidermis or cuticle, 

 a mucous tissue, a true skin, and an adipose membrane, 

 the latter containing in its cells an immense quantity 

 of fat. 



The cuticle is very like that on the sole of the human 

 foot, composed of several layers, and altogether dense, 

 tough, and inelastic. It is, generally speaking, 

 smooth, and often bright and splendent, from the 

 quantity of oil with which it is furnished. There are 

 few hairs, scales, or other external appendages to it, 

 but it contains a great number of pores. On the 

 internal surface it is rough, and in the larger species 

 it has the appearance of velvet. It is variously 



coloured, but, in general, it is dark on the upper 

 parts of the animal ; but in some it is spotted : 

 and in others, as in some of the baltenae, it is 

 piebald. Some species are half brown half white, 

 and others are striped with black and yellow. The 

 upper part is often brown or dusky ; and, though 

 the element in which these animals live is much 

 more uniform in its temperature than the air, there 

 seem to be nearly the same climatal variations in 

 their colour which are found in land animals. The 

 whales of the extreme northern latitudes, as, for 

 instance, about Spitzbergcn, are almost all uniformly 

 of a white colour ; and these differences appear to be 

 entirely climatal ; or, if not so, they are occasioned 

 by the differences of age, not of species. 



The mucous tissue is much thicker than in land 

 animals, and it is not easy to distinguish between the 

 first layer of it and the epidermis. This, as in land 

 animals, is the seat of colour, the real epidermis 

 being in both perfectly transparent. There may be 

 albinos among whales, as there are among land mam- 

 malia ; but even in the purely while specimens that 

 have been examined, there has not appeared to be 

 that want of the mucous tissue which is found in land 

 albinos ; we must therefore consider the whiteness 

 as the result of climate rather than of any imperfec- 

 tion of structure in the animals themselves. 



The outer surface of the true skin is villous, or 

 beset with papillae, which run into small ridges like 

 those on the tips of the human fingers. These villi 

 run in ridges, and in some of the species, the sper- 

 maceti whales especially, they are at least a quarter 

 of an inch long. In general, the skin of these 

 animals has but little elasticity, or, at all events, it is 

 stretched to the full extent by the immense quantity 

 of fat in the adipose membrane, though there are 

 some of the species in which the elasticity is so great 

 as to draw the skin into distinct ridges and furrows, 

 as may be seen in the piked whales, in which the 

 whole skin of the neck, throat, and all the under part 

 of the body, as far as the middle of the belly, is 

 formed into very decidedly marked transverse ridges. 



The most curious part of the covering of these 

 animals is, however, the adipose tissue, the cells of 

 which are loaded with that immense quantity of fat 

 which makes the animal so eagerly sought after by 

 the fishermen. This quantity of fat varies in amount 

 and in consistency in almost all the species, but upon 

 the body it always consists, for the greater part, of 

 elain, or soft fat ; and where there is any accumula- 

 tion of stearhic, or hard fat, that is usually found in 

 the head of the animals, and it is called by the 

 absurd name of spermaceti. In the common whale, 

 this soft fat is called the blubber, or spick, and in 

 good-conditioned whales it is sometimes from twenty 

 inches to two feet in thickness, though in the smaller 

 and more active species, as in the dolphins and 

 porpoises, it is much less. The land animal to 

 which the fat of the cetacea has the nearest resem- 

 blance is the hog, but the fat of the cetacea is far 

 softer than lard, and may be regarded as a substance 

 which is perfectly sni generis in its mechanical struc- 

 ture, though, in its chemical composition, it differs 

 little from the fat of any other of the mammalia. 



System of Reproduction. In this part of their 

 economy the cetacea are all, strictly speaking, mam- 

 malia, though they differ a good deal, the females 

 especially, from land animals. Very little is, however, 

 known about their mode of pairing, or the period of 



