200 



CATODONTID.E.- 



-MAMMALIA. 



JATODONTID.E. 



Several other species of the genus Physalus are indi- 

 cated in the Museum catalogue. 



FAMILY II. CATODONTDXaE. 



The members of this family are sometimes described 

 under the synonymous and equally distinctive title of 

 Physeteridae, which includes the cachalot or sperma- 

 cetes, and the short-headed whales. These animals have 

 the nostrils separate and longitudinally disposed ; their 

 palate is smooth and destitute of baleen ; whilst a still 

 more characteristic feature is seen in the presence of 

 numerous large conical teeth in the lower jaw (fig. 79), 

 the upper jaw being edentulous, or furnished with mere 

 rudiments of teeth beneath the gums. The head, 

 though comparatively short in some, is enormously 

 developed. The intestine has no coacum. 



THE NORTHERN SPERM WHALE (Catodon macro- 

 cephalus), or COMMON CACHALOT Plate 27, fig. 87 is 

 also known as the Blunt-headed Cachalot, and the Sper- 

 maceti whale ; generically, it is at once recognized by its 

 elongated head, which is abruptly truncated anteriorly, 

 the blowers being placed near the extremity of the snout, 

 and the dorsal hump is rounded. In its native haunts,' 

 this huge monster is found in the northern seas, but 



Fig- 79 



Jaw-bone of the Cachalot (Catodon macrocephalus). 



it occasionally visits our own shores. An example was 

 cast ashore on Cramond island, in the Frith of Forth, 

 on the 22d of December, 1796 ; its length was fifty- 

 four feet, and the greatest circumference, at a point 

 immediately beyond the eyes, thirty feet ; the upper 

 jaw being ascertained to be five feet longer than the 

 lower, which measured ten feet, and was provided with 

 twenty-three teeth on either side. The largest tooth 

 was eight inches long, its circumferential measurement 

 being the same. It was described and accurately 

 figured by Mr. James Robertson, in the 60th volume of 

 the Philosophical Transactions. The occurrence of 

 the Cachalot on the shores of the Orkney and Zetland 

 islands is by no means a rare circumstance, but it is 

 very seldom taken on the English coasts. That it does 

 occasionally visit our shores, has been satisfactorily 

 shown by Dr. Collingwood, to whom naturalists are 

 indebted to use his own words for resuscitating " a 

 still-bom record of the Spermaceti whale," which he 

 found in a document contained in Sir Joseph Banks' 

 copy of the Philosophical Transactions in the British 

 Museum. It is entitled an " Extract from a letter 

 from Walberswick, on the coast of Suffolk, dated 

 March 7, 1788," and runs as follows : " A whale 

 appearing on our coast ie a rare phenomenon. The 

 most extraordinary instance that ever happened of this 

 sort was in February, 1763, after a hard gale of wind 

 northerly, when no lesa than twelve whales, which 



undoubtedly came out of the Northern Ocean, were 

 towed and driven on shore at the following places, all 

 of them dead, and in a high state of putrefaction, 

 excepting one." This notable exception was " one at 

 Hope Point, in the River Thames. This was the only 

 one seen alive. He ran aground and smothered him- 

 self in the mud, and was afterwards made a show of in 

 the Greenland Docks. These were all of the sperma- 

 ceti kind, and of the male gender ;" "and it is remark- 

 able," adds Dr. Collingwood, " that out of the twelve, 

 (or rather ten, for two stranded on the Dutch coast,) 

 six were found upon the coast of Kent. From an old 

 engraving of the above specimen in my possession, to 

 which a scale is attached, it appears to have been near 

 sixty feet long. Within a much more recent period, 

 a small Cachalot was captured in the Thames, near 

 Gravesend, but I am not in possession of any particu- 

 lars of the event." The Cachalot is gregarious in its 

 habits, large multitudes of them herding together. By 

 the South Sea whalers they are termed "schools;" some- 

 times all consisting of females, and at other of males 

 not fully grown. One or two large " bulls," or " school- 

 masters," as they are ridiculously termed, usually 

 accompany the female herds, and Mr. Beale reckons 

 that he has seen as many as six hundred individuals of 

 the southern species in a single school ! The female 

 is comparatively small, and produces one, and some- 

 times two young, at a birth. The two recorded by 

 M. F. Cuvier, which were brought forth by a whale 

 stranded on the French coast, near D'Audierne, were 

 each about ten feet in length. The young are of a 

 deep black colour, and mottled with whitish spots. 



THE SOUTHERN SPERM WHALE (Catodon poly- 

 cyphus) very closely resembles the northern species, 

 both in respect of its size and habits. It has the same 

 large head and characteristic jaws, the lower being 

 lodged in a groove of the upper, whilst the crowns of 

 the teeth fit into corresponding socket-like cavities, so 

 as to be entirely concealed when the mouth is closed. 

 The southern Sperm whale, or Cachalot, occasionally 

 attains a length of seventy or eighty feet, and a specimen 

 has been minutely described by Mr. Beale which mea- 

 sured eighty-four feet. The skin is usually smooth and 

 dark coloured, almost black ; but piebald varieties occur, 

 as well as other differences in the depth of shading. " Old 

 bulls," says Mr. Beale in his work on the Sperm whale, 

 " have generally a portion of grey on the nose, imme- 

 diately above the fore-part of the upper jaw, when they 

 are said to be grey-headed." The same authority 

 observes that the head which we stated in our introduc- 

 tory observations to contain a large quantity of oil is 

 " specifically lighter than any other part of the body, 

 and will always have a tendency to rise at least so far 

 above the surface as to elevate the nostril or blow-hole 

 sufficiently for all purposes of respiration ; and, more 

 than this, a very slight effort on the part of the whale 

 would only be necessary to raise the whole of the 

 anterior flat surface of the nose out of the water. At 

 very regular intervals of time, the snout emerges, and 

 from the extremity of the nose the spout is thrown up, 

 and at a distance appears thick, low, bushy, and white. 

 It is formed of the expired air, forcibly ejected through 

 the blow-hole, and acquires its white colour from 



