VOL. LXXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3Q3 



on its age. By being accumulated after a certain length of time in the intestinal 

 canal, it seems even then to become of a whiter colour, and less ponderous, and 

 acquire its agreeable smell. The only reason why ambergris found floating on 

 the sea generally possesses the abovementioned qualities in a superior degree, is 

 because it is commonly older, and has been longer exposed to the air. It is 

 more frequently found in males than females ; the pieces found in females are in 

 general smaller, and those found in males seem constantly to be larger and of a 

 better quality, and therefore the high price in proportion to the size is not merely 

 imaginary for the rarity-sake, but in some respect well founded, because such 

 large pieces appear to be of a greater age, and possess the abovementioned quali- 

 ties in general in a higher degree of perfection than smaller pieces. 



Having discovered beaks of the cuttle fish in all the pieces of ambergris I 

 had an opportunity of examining, it now remained to be ascertained, how those 

 beaks became so constantly mixed with ambergris? In prosecuting this inquiry, 

 I had the satisfaction to learn from the same persons who gave me the informa- 

 tion abovementioned, that the sepia octopodia, or cuttle fish, is the constant 

 and natural food of the spermaceti whale, or physeter macrocephalus. Of this 

 they are so well persuaded, that whenever they discover any recent relics of it 

 swimming on the sea, they conclude that a whale of this kind is, or has been, in 

 that part. Another circumstance which corroborates this fact is, that the sper- 

 maceti whale on being hooked generally vomits up some remains of the sepia.* 

 Hence we may easily account for the many beaks, or pieces of beaks, of the 

 sepia found in all ambergris. The beak of the sepia is a black horny substance, 

 and therefore passes undigested through the stomach into the intestinal canal, 

 where it is mixed with the faeces ; after which it is either evacuated with them, 

 or if these latter be preternaturally retained, forms concretions with them, which 

 render the animal sick and torpid, and produce an obstipation, which ends either 

 in an abscess of the abdomen, as has been frequently observed, or becomes fatal 

 to the animal ; whence in both the cases, on the bursting of its belly, that har- 

 dened substance, known under the name of ambergris, is found swimming on 

 the sea, or thrown on the coast. From the preceding account, and my having 



* It will not be improper here to remark, to what an enormous size this species of sepia grows 

 in the ocean. One of the gentlemen who was so kind as to communicate to me his observations on 

 this subject, about ten years ago hooked a spermaceti whale that had in its mouth a large substance 

 with which he was unacquainted, but which proved to be a tentaculum of the sepia octopodia, 

 nearly 27 feet long : this tenlaculum however did not seem to be entire, one end of it appearing in 

 some measure corroded by digestion, so that in its natural state it may have been a great deal longer. 

 With regard to its being a tentaculum of the cuttle, the fishermen could not have been mistaken, as 

 they themselves often feed on the smaller sort of the same sepia. When we consider the enormous 

 bulk of the tentaculum of the sepia here spoken of, we shall cease to wonder at the common saying 

 of the fishermen, that the cuttle-fish is the largest fish of the ocean. — Orig. 

 VOL. XV. 3 E 



