r!LASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 12. CETACEA. 



657 



THE SPERM-WHALE. 



six feet long, and thirty-eight in circumference. The females are much smaller, usually measur- 

 ing from thirty to thirty-five feet in length. 



They inhabit deep water, and very rarely approach the land. Their food consists principally 

 of cuttle-fishes, which swarm in great profusion in the southern seas. They usually swim in 

 flocks, called schools and ^orfs by the whalers, consisting of from twenty to fifty females and 

 their young, accompanied by one or two old males, to which the seamen give the name of bulls. 

 They are taken in great numbers, as the oil obtained from their blubber is the finest of the animal 

 oils, and is much used for burning in lamps, and the oily matter from the head — spermaceti — is 

 also of great value, both as an ointment and for the manufacture of candles. Another substance 

 of still greater value, obtained from the sperm-whale, is the well-known perfume called Amber- 

 gris. This is a morbid concretion formed in the intestine of the sperm-whale, either in the 

 stomach, or more probably in the gall-ducts, as in its nature it appears to resemble a gall-stone. 

 It forms masses of considerable size, sometimes as much as thirty or forty pounds in weight; and 

 is usually found floating upon the surface of the water, probably disengaged from the decomposing 

 body of one of these monsters. The whalers rarely seek for it in the intestines of the sperm- 

 whales which they kill, although its value is about five dollars an ounce. It has the singular 

 property of increasing the power of other perfumes when mixed with them, and it is for this pur- 

 pose that it is principally employed. 



Valuable as these creatures are, their pursuit is attended with danger in fully equal proportion. 

 They are harpooned from boats in the same way iis the true whales, and, like these, frequently 

 use their tails as most formidable offensive weapons ; but in this case the other members of the 

 flock will often come to the assistance of their wounded comrade, and thus add greatly to the peril 

 of the boatmen. There are cases on record of men being struck out of the boats and killed by 

 the powerful tails of these creatures; and in other instances the whales have been known to ru>h 

 against the ships with such violence as to spring leaks, which have caused them to -ink within a 

 few hours. The ship Essex, of Nantucket, was struck in this way, and three of the men only were 

 saved after rowing several weeks in open boats. The Americans, who take a leading part in the 

 whale fisheries throughout the world,* are particularly successful- in capturing the sperm-whale, 

 which they pursue in various parts of the Pacific Ocean. 



* New Bedford, in Massachusetts, is the center of the American whale fisheries, which employ together, about 

 seven hundred sail of vessels, of two hundred thousand tons, and fifteen thousand men. Whales are captured bv 

 them on the American coasts, the coasts of Africa, in the Arctic Seas, and in the Pacific Ocean. 



Vol. I.— 83 



