THE WHALE TRIBE. 



Ill 



Fig. 93 The Sperm Whale. 



teeth. In the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford there is an 

 under-jaw-bone of this whale, sixteen and a half feet in 

 length, containing forty-eight huge teeth. It can knock 

 a boat in pieces with its tail, or bite it in two with its 

 jaws. In its immense head there is a very small brain, 

 but there is a large reservoir of mingled spermaceti and 

 oil in nearly a liquid state. A hole is cut in its head by 

 its captors, and this mixture is baled out with buckets. 

 By draining and boiling, the spermaceti is obtained from 

 this separate from the oil. The blubber of this whale 

 is thin, but yields a fine and valuable oil. The sperma- 

 ceti obtained from a Sperm Whale of ordinary size 

 amounts to about ten or twelve barrels. 



190. The perfume called Ambergris is found in the in- 

 testines of the Sperm Whale. It is of the consistence 

 of wax, is inflammable, and has a musky odor. 



191. The Sperm Whales are gregarious, forming com- 

 panies of some hundreds, with two of the largest as 

 guards and leaders. Their food is fish, which they can 

 swallow of a large size, for their throats are capacious 



