C E T A C E A. 



789 



the species last mentioned ; and it is also more ex- 

 cursive. It is found of nearly the same length with 

 the other; but the body is rather more slender, 

 while on the other hand the head is thicker, especially 

 towards the snout, which is rounded, projects about 

 five feet beyond the lower jaw, and measures at least 

 eight feet in depth, from the crown to the opening of 

 the mouth. The lower jaw is about ten feet long in 

 the opening, which makes the bottom of the gape 

 fifteen feet behind the extremity of the snout. This 

 thick and projecting portion of the snout consists for 

 the greater part of spermaceti ; and the fat upon the 

 body is more abundant than that on the great- headed 

 species, and also of superior quality. When we 

 speak of great-headed as applied to these animals, 

 the term is by no means accurately descriptive, for 

 the species now under notice has really the greater 

 head of the two, although the thickness and bluntness 

 of the snout form a distinction. The lower jaw, the 

 depth of which bears but a small proportion to that 

 of the upper, fits into a sort of groove in the upper 

 one. It has about eighteen teeth on each side, which 

 have their points turned outwards ; and the two hard 

 gums close with oblique edges, so as to crush or hold 

 with great force. This animal is very bold, attacking 

 its enemies with great determination, so that it is very 

 dangerous to come near it if wounded, and not 

 mortally. 



Physeter microps. This is the small-eyed sperma- 

 ceti whale ; and though there is necessarily a good 

 deal of confusion in the accounts of animals which 

 are generally attempted to be killed the moment they 

 are seen, and which cannot be very well or very 

 closely examined alive, yet this seems to be the most 

 active and also the fiercest of the whole genus. 



This species which is found both in the cold and 

 the warm seas, and which has been occasionally 

 stranded on the west coast of Europe and on the 

 British shores, is generally understood to be the 

 great sea-monster of the ancients ; the one from the 

 peril of which Perseus delivered the fair Andromeda, 

 and for which act the whole three have had a place 

 assigned them among the constellations. It is also 

 the one against which, according to Pliny, the 

 Emperor Claudian mustered his army in the port of 

 Ostia, and probably also the one alluded to in the 

 prophecy of Jonah, although the description there 

 must be considered figurative, as no doubt the others 

 are in great part at least fabulous. 



This has some resemblance to the species already 

 noticed, but it differs from them in many particulars. 

 Its colour on the upper part is blacker, indeed almost 

 entirely black ; it has a dorsal fin, which is straight, 

 high, and pointed ; its eyes are very small, and though 

 its head is very large it is not quite so much so at 

 the muzzle as that of the blunt-headed. The swim- 

 ming paws and the tail are larger than in the others ; 

 and the body is rather more slender. There is not 

 nearly the same tendency to accumulate soft fat on 

 the body as in the whalebone whales, or even in the 

 other species of this genus ; but the quantity of sper- 

 maceti is great, and its quality is excellent. 



The mouth of this animal is very formidable ; tte 

 upper jaw does not extend wholly to the extremity 

 of the snout, but it is a little longer than the lower 

 jaw, and the two close upon each other more firmly 

 perhaps than in the blunt-nosed species. The teeth 

 in the lower jaw are about forty-two in number; they 

 have hollow roots resembling the tusks of elephants, 



and of the narwhals much more than they do common 

 teeth. They do this both in their structure and in 

 their texture ; and this structure is common to the 

 teeth of cetaceous animals, whether those teeth be in 

 the one jaw, in the other, in both, or projecting from 

 the snout, unconnected with the opening of the mouth 

 as they do with the narwhal. These teeth ha\ e 

 their hollow bases inserted in the gurn for about two- 

 thirds of their entire length. The portion which 

 stands above the gum is white like ivory, conical in 

 its general form, and sharp at the tip, but bent first 

 backwards and then a little outwards. They are, in 

 short, very dangerous teeth to come in contact with, 

 and the animal has great power in its jaws. As is the 

 case in the species formerly described, these teeth 

 lock into corresponding holes in the hard gum of the 

 upper jaw ; but though they appear but little above 

 the surface of the gum, there are teeth also in all the 

 intermediate parts of this jaw, so that this whale may 

 be said to begin its bite with the teeth of the lower 

 jaw, and finish it with those of the upper. 



This species is described as being much more fero- 

 cious than the former, though hardly equal to them 

 in size. The peculiar formation of its mouth enables 

 it to bite in pieces, though not to grind or masticate, 

 and therefore it ventures to attack much larger prey. 

 It masters not only the largest species of fish, but 

 also many of the animals of this family. Dolphins, 

 porpoises, and even the larger dolphins which some- 

 times attack the whalebone whales, are among the 

 every day prey of this indiscriminate devourer. Nor 

 does it confine itself to these, it attacks the balanio- 

 ptera even when they are full grown, and the young 

 of the great whalebone whale itself. 



By the fishermen, all the species or varieties of 

 physeter which have been enumerated, together with 

 five or six more which are not so well defined, are 

 classed under the general name spermaceti whales. 

 They are probably all found in one place or other of 

 the Greenland seas, or northern parts of the Atlantic ; 

 but that is not the district where they are found in the 

 greatest numbers, or captured to the greatest advan- 

 tage. The Pacific is their grand field, and their 

 range along that great ocean from Behring's Straits to 

 the Antarctic ice. They are also found, seasonally 

 at least, in the Indian Ocean, and they are very 

 common upon some parts of the shores of Australia. 

 They are very interesting animals, and highly valua- 

 ble in a commercial point of view ; and as the Pacific 

 is a very wide pasture, and from their indiscriminate 

 feeding they have a much wider range than the more 

 peaceful whales of the north, there is less danger of 

 thinning, or, at all events, of exhausting their numbers, 

 than there is in the case of these. 



4. With produced teeth in both jaws (Ambideiilakje). 

 The cetacea which have regular teeth in both jaws 

 are of much smaller dimensions, more numerous, 

 some of them at least better known, and all of them 

 more easily examined than those more gigantic spe- 

 cies which form the third group in our enumeration. 

 They are usually arranged into two genera, Delphi- 

 mis (dolphins and porpoises) and Hyperaodon (beaked 

 whale). There are several species of the former 

 genus, but only one of the latter, and there is some 

 confusion in the history even of that one. 



Dolphin (Delphinus). Scarcely any specimen of 

 this genus has been met with exceedingfive-and-twenty 

 feet in length. They must not be confounded with 

 the dolphin of the ancients, and what is still called 



