TOOTHED WHALES. 33 



to look about them. When descending, they re-enter the water head first, instead 

 of falling helplessly on their sides like the larger whales. Their ordinary food, 

 according to the same observer, consists of a bluish white cuttle-fish, 6 inches long 

 and 3 inches in circumference, and pointed towards the tail. The stomachs of 

 those whales that were examined contained nothing but remains of these cuttles. 

 In their search after food it appears that the bottlenose-whales descend to great 

 depths, as they remain under water for a long period, and blow very heavily 

 upon reaching the surface. When wounded, they will sometimes remain below 

 for as much as two hours at a time, after which they will come up apparently 

 untired. 



The bottlenose yields spermaceti, and an oil very similar to 

 sperm-oil and capable of being used for the same purposes. An adult 

 male will produce about two hundred weight of spermaceti and two tons of oil. 

 The protuberance on the front of the head of the female contains a small quantity 

 of colourless oil which is twice the density of that obtained from the blubber; 

 while in the male the same region is composed of solid fat. 



A fossil bottlenose- whale, apparently closely allied to the living species, has 

 left its remains in the Pliocene crag deposits of the eastern coast of England. 



, The rare Cetacean, known as Cuvier's whale (Ziphius cavirostris), 



' differs from the bottlenose in having a pair of well-developed conical 

 teeth at the extremity of the lower jaw, which are directed forwards and upwards. 

 In the skull there are but slight indications of the longitudinal bony crests of the 

 bottlenose ; while the beak is longer and much more solid in structure, owing to 

 the ossification of certain cartilages and their fusion with the adjacent bones. 

 When viewed from above, their beak is triangular in form, gradually tapering 

 from its broad base to its narrow extremity. A further point of difference from 

 the bottlenose is to be found in the circumstance that only the first three, instead 

 of the whole seven, of the vertebrae of the neck are united together. The colour 

 is believed to be black above and white below. This whale appears to be known 

 only from stranded specimens, which have been obtained from regions as remote 

 from one another as the Shetland Islands, the Cape of Good Hope, Eastern South 

 America, and New Zealand. Sir W. Turner appears, therefore, to be fully justified 

 in his opinion that its distribution is as extensive as that of the sperm-whale. 



THE BEAKED WHALES. 

 Genus Mesoplodon. 



The beaked whales derive their English name from the great development of 

 the rostral portion of the skull, which is long and narrow, and formed of extremely 

 solid and ivory-like bone ; while they take their scientific title from the presence 

 of a pair of teeth generally situated near the middle of each side of the lower jaw. 

 Each of these two teeth is pointed and much flattened, sometimes being elongated 

 into a strap-like form, so as to overhang the beak of the skull ; their position is 

 variable, but generally some distance behind the extremity of the jaw. The skull 

 has the same curving crests over the aperture of the nostrils as in the bottlenose, 



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