MAY. 173 



slices of the lower. We found in his maw some beaks of 

 squids (Sepia). Under the skin was a coating of white fat, 

 an inch in thickness all over the body, and much thicker 

 about the head ; this was peeled from the flesh with the skin, 

 and thrown into a cask to melt into oil. All the cetaceous 

 animals having warm blood, would be likely to be chilled by 

 the coldness of the water, as they have no outward covering, 

 such as fur or hair. God has therefore protected them by a 

 thick coat of fat, which is a poor conductor of heat : the 

 effect of this is, that their blood is as hot as that of any land 

 animal, if not more so. We ate part of the flesh of our 

 game ; it looked much like beef when raw, but was very 

 dark when cooked : it was particularly tender, and " ate 

 short," as it is called. I fancied it had something of the 

 taste of reindeer venison, which I had eaten in New- 

 foundland. This was a male, and one of large size. The 

 colour was bluish black on the back, lead colour on the sides 

 and fins, and white on the belly. The other that I saw 

 caught was in the Gulf of Mexico ; the harpooning, the 

 struggling, and the thumping of the tail were the same as in 

 the former instance ; but this was a much smaller specimen, 

 measuring only six feet in length : it was a female. It had 

 thirty- eight teeth on each side of each jaw, making one hun- 

 dred and fifty-two in all ; of this, too, I took a drawing. 

 Whenever a dolphin is harpooned, the rest of the shoal 

 vanish instantly, never staying to sympathize with the suf- 

 ferer : indeed, sailors say that if one is wounded and escapes 

 the harpoon, the rest immediately tear him to pieces with 

 their serrated jaws, and devour him. I think it probable 

 that some species of this tribe are yet undescribed. In going 

 up the English Channel in 1832, when off the Devonshire 

 coast, a large animal of the cetaceous kind suddenly ap- 

 peared just under our bowsprit ; it swam along for about 

 ten minutes (the vessel going before the wind at about five 



