112 



When fully matured by age, the male of this gigantic race of beings 

 B said to have reached in length to eighty-four feet, with a girth at the 

 largest part of thirty-six feet. In the absence of the actual specimen, 

 an ideal estimate of this enormous bulk may be arrived at by viewing 

 the excellent skeleton, fifty-seven feet in length, of the same species, 

 recently erected in the Australian Museum, and imagining it nearly half 

 again as long. 



The ordinary food of the Sperm "Whale is derived from various kinds 

 of Calamaries, or squids, and especially from that species called, from 

 its habit of leaping out of water, the flying squid, an animal well known 

 from its extreme abundance in all the open seas of the world, and from 

 its extensive use as bait in the Newfoundland cod fisheries. There can 

 be no doubt, however, that other food, such as fish, crustaceans, and 

 even seals and dolphins, is likewise indulged in. 



Otho Fabricius, and other writers of about his time, describe these 

 whales as existing plentifully in the higher latitudes of the northern 

 seas ; but old and young being alike subjected to unceasing persecution, 

 the race has been almost entirely driven away from the North Atlantic. 



Mr. E. Brown, whom we have had occasion already to quote in regard 

 to the habits of the Northern Killer, remarks of the sperm whale that, 

 " whatever it was formerly, it is now only known to Davis Strait whalers 

 by name, and I could only hear of one recent instance of its being killed 

 on the coast of Greenland near Proven (72 N. lat.), in 1857." 

 Professor Lilljeborg, also, in his " Synopsis of the Scandinavian Whales, 

 1861," considers the sperm whale as foreign to the Fauna of Norway and 

 Sweden. 



There are, however, numerous instances in modern times of their 

 appearance in small groups off the Orkneys, and of individuals being 

 stranded on the British Coast. 



" They are essentially inhabitants of the tropical and warmer parts of 

 the temperate seas, and they pass freely from one hemisphere into 

 another. Between the North Atlantic and the Australian Seas there is 

 no barrier interposed to animals of such great powers of locomotion." 1 

 " Few connect the pursuit of this sea-beast with the smiling latitudes of 

 the South Pacific, and the coral islands of the Torrid Zone." 2 Never- 

 theless they are still the occupants of the colder regions of the south, 

 for " sperm whales were seen in the Antarctic Seas as high as latitude 

 71 50' " 3 



Thus, the sperm whale is capable, from its endurance of varied tempera- 

 ture and a permanent supply of food, of roaming at pleasure the entire 

 seas embraced within the Arctic and Antarctic regions. 



Were, therefore, the Fisheries conducted on judicious principles, 

 those of capturing the adults at certain seasons only, and at all times 

 sparing the young, these animals, of the greatest commercial value 



1 W. H. Flower, Trans. Zool. Soc., 1868. 



2 Beale, 1835. 



3 Captain Boss, B.N., Antarctic Voyage. 



