THE CAAING, OR PILOT WHALE. 255 



their gigantic spoil. Sperm oil, we need hardly say, is exceedingly valuable. The quantity obtained 

 between 1835 and 1872 by the Americans alone is reckoned at 3,671,772 barrels, and the wholesale 

 price has varied during these years from four to ten shillings per gallon. 



THE SHORT-HEADED WHALE, OB SNUB-NOSED CACHALOT.* Under this name, and possibly also 

 that of Gray's Kogia,t an animal has been described which, far smaller in size and in many respects dif- 

 fering from the Sperm Whale, nevertheless is more closely allied to it than to any other of the Cetacea. 

 Whether the two names belong to different or the same species may be left open for the present. At 

 all events, specimens have been obtained at the Cape of Good Hope, the East Indies, and Australia, 

 which so closely resemble each other as probably to belong to one and the same species. This animal 

 measures from six to ten feet in length, and is almost Porpoise-like in general appearance. It has a 

 well-marked dorsal fin behind the middle of the body, short flippei-s, and the snout is said to be 

 turned up with a margin somewhat like a Pig's. The upper surface of the body is black, and the 

 under parts haA r e a tinge of yellow or light flesh-colour. The few specimens hitherto obtained afford 

 no information regarding its habits. The peculiar construction of its skull, short, broad, distorted, with 

 a bony division in the spermaceti cavity and other skeletal characters, give it an interest as being an 

 intermediate form between the Cachalot and the Dolphins proper. 



THE DOLPHINS (DELPHINID^) . 



This group possesses considerable diversity in outward form, in skeletal characters, and dentition ; 

 nay more, many of the genera blend into each other. The Narwhal by its peculiar teeth, and the 

 White Whale by its colour, besides some few other points, stand apart. The Porpoise and the Neo- 

 mei-is agree in teeth and skull ; the Killer Whales are distinguished by their broad flippers ; the Pilot 

 Whales, on the contrary, by the extreme length and narrowness of their flippers ; the Dolphins proper 

 have long narrow beaks and numerous teeth ; while several other genera unite characters so that it is 

 difficult to define where one commences and another ends. Nearly all have dorsal fins. Excepting in 

 the Narwhal, numerous teeth exist in both jaws. The lower jaws are united only for a short distance, 

 and there is no distinct skull crest behind the nasal orifice, while the neck vertebrae in most are 

 soldered together. The ditficulty in giving the natural sequence, the genera, and species of this group, 

 for reasons aforesaid, leads iis to commence with one which has a singular prominence in the forehead, 

 composed of a soft blubbery material intermingled with strong fibres, one might say, a kind of modified 

 spermaceti substance. 



THE CAAING, OR PILOT WHALE, OR DEDUCTOR, % is one of the best known Whales that frequent the 



CAAING, OR PILOT WHALE. 



British coasts, herds of hundreds having often been run ashore in the Shetlands, Orkneys, and even 

 in the Frith of Forth. Adults average from sixteen to twenty-five feet in length, are of a jet-black 

 colour, but lighter or whitish on the abdomen. The body is cylindrical, tapering to the tail ; the dorsal 

 fin is high, placed at the middle of the back ; the flippers are unusually long and narrow, and the fingers 

 possess an unusually great number of bones, as many as fourteen to the second digit. The head is quite 



* Koaia breviceps ; the Physcter simus of Owen. f K- (Euphysetes) Grayii of MacLeay. J Globiocephalus mefas. 



