THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 



British, our entire knowledge rests on a single 

 individual which was cast on shore on the Elgin 

 coast, and was seen and described by the natu- 

 ralist Sowerby. 



There is a species of sperm-whale (Physeter 

 tursio) affirmed to be frequently seen about the 

 Shetland Islands ; a vast creature of sixty feet in 

 length, and readily distinguishable from all other 

 Cetacea by its lofty dorsal, and, according to old 

 Sibbald, by other remarkable peculiarities in its 

 anatomy. Yet no specimen of this huge creature 

 baa fallen under modern scientific observation; 

 and zoologists are not yet agreed among them- 

 selves, whether the High-finned Cachalot is a 

 myth or a reality 1 



M. Itafinesque Smaltz, a Sicilian naturalist, de- 

 scribed a Cetacean which, he said, he had seen in 

 the Mediterranean, possessing two dorsals. The 

 character was so abnormal that his statement 

 was not received ; but the eminent zoologists at- 

 tached to one of the French exploring expeditions 

 —MM. Quoy and Gairnard,— saw a school of 

 cetacea around their ship in the South Pacific, 

 having this extraordinary character,— the super- 

 numerary fin being placed on the back of the head. 

 Here is the evidence of competent naturalists to 

 the existence of a most remarkable whale, no 

 carcase of which, no skeleton, has ever been recog- 

 nised. 



The last example I shall adduce is from my own 

 experience. During my voyage to Jamaica, when 

 in lat. 19° N., and long, from 46° to 48° W., the 

 ship was surrounded for seventeen continuous 

 hours with a troop of whales, of a species which 

 is certainly undescribed. I had ample opportunity 

 for examination, and found that it was a Del- 

 phinorhynchus, thirty feet in length, black above 

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