rOL. VI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 641 



fish's ascent to the top of the water for the use of respiration, which is as ne- 

 cessary for him as for quadrupeds. 



Immediately under the skin lay the fat, which, as 1 remember, our seamen 

 call the blubber; it was firm, full of fibres, and in this small fish of an inch 

 thickness, encompassing and enclosing the whole body, back, belly, and sides. 

 The use whereof I conceive to be, 1 . To keep the cold water at a distance from 

 the blood, which is, I believe, actually and to the touch hot, in a degree not 

 much inferior to that of quadrupeds, and therefore by immediate cont'ict of the 

 water would be apt to be chilled. '2. To keep in the hot steams of the blood 

 from evaporating; by that means also preserving and maintaining its natural 

 heat; as we see water, and any other liquor, in a close vessel will retain its heat 

 much longer than in an open ; and nothing is more proper to detain the finest 

 and subtillest evaporations and spirits, than oil or fat. 3. Perhaps also, to 

 lighten or counterpoise the body of the fish, which would otherwise be too 

 heavy to move and swim in the water. Under the blubber lay the muscular 

 flesh, like to that of quadrupeds, but of a darker colour. 



The body was divided into three regions or ventries like a quadruped's, viz. 

 head, breast, and belly; the vessels and viscera in each venter, for the main, the 

 Bame as in quadrupeds; 1. The abdomen was compassed about with a strong pe- 

 ritonaeum. The guts joined to the mesentery, and of a very great length, in 

 measure 48 feet, without any difference or distinction of great and small; nei- 

 ther was there any blindgut or appendix, that I could find. The stomach was of 

 a strange make, being divided into two large bags, beside other smaller ones. I 

 found nothing in it but a good number of those little long fishes, which our 

 fishermen dig out of the sands at low water, and therefore call in some places 

 sand eels, by some they are called launces, and by Gesner, ammodytae. 



The liver was of a moderate size, situate in the right side, and divided into 

 two lobes, having no cystis fellea or receptacle of gall annexed. The. pancreas 

 large, sticking close to the third bag of the stomach, into which also its duct 

 enters and empties itself. The spleen small and roundish. The kidneys large, 

 sticking close to the back, and lying contiguous one to the other, made up of 

 many little kernels, like, but less than those of an ox, of a flat figure, having 

 no pelvis in the middle, but the ureters going out at the lower end. 



The urine bladder oblong, and little for the bulk of the animal, having on 

 each side a round ligament, made of the umbilical arteries degenerating. The 

 penis long, slender, having a small sharp glans, it appears not outwardly, but 

 lies hid in its sheath w ithin the body, doubled up or rather reflected in the form 

 of the letter S, as is that of a bull. The testicles lie within the cavity of the 

 abdomen on each side, as they do in a hedgehog, and some other quadrupeds, 

 VOL. I. 4 M 



