11 



beak only as long as its ^YidtIl at the uotclies. Neither is the 

 Sydney whale a species belonging to Gray's genus Fhyseter; for 

 this last has its blow-hole opening on the middle of the top 

 of the head, instead of opening at the upper termination of the 

 snout, as in true sperm whales. 



Beale's Yorkshire skeleton has, as before mentioned, a skull 

 eighteen feet half an inch long, while the extreme width of it was 

 measured by him to be eight feet four inches. Now, according to 

 this proportion, the Sydney skull, nine feet six inches long, 

 ought to have a breadth of only four feet four and a half 

 inches, whereas its actual breadth is five feet four inches. In 

 other words, in the Sydney animal, the head is nearly one- 

 fifth its whole width broader than the Yorkshire cachalot, 

 which at the same time, as was before shown, has propor- 

 tionally a longer head. As might have been expected from 

 the foregoing remarks, the Sydney skeleton has a proportionally 

 shorter under jaw ; for comparing the length of the Yorkshire 

 skull with that of its under jaw, we find that the Sydney under 

 jaw, ought, in like manner, to be eight feet ten inches long, 

 whereas, it is only seven feet eight inches. 



In all the GatodontidcB or family of sperm whales, there is an 

 early junction of the two sides of the under jaw ; so that from 

 the articulating portion of the base of the skull, the two branches 

 converge in nearly straight lines to a point where this junction 

 takes place, and then both extend anteriorly, in the form of a 

 subcylindrical symphysis. This structvire is not common in 

 Cetacea, but may be seen in the Soosoo, or Dolphin of the 

 Ganges, the genus /'/fli'a«zsif« of Cuvier, who, therefore, ascribes 

 to such fresh water dolphins a certain afiinity with sperm whales. 

 Perhaps, however, this relation ought more correctly to be 

 termed, an analogy. 



In the very learned introduction to Cuvier's Comparative 

 Anatomy of the Sperm AVhale, we find that Sir E. Sibbald, in 

 16S9, described a specimen cast ashore on the coast of Scotland, 

 as having forty-two teeth. In 1723, Theodore Hasseus described 

 one caught, latitude 77 degrees north, as having fifty-two teeth. 

 Anderson, in 1740, described one with fifty teeth ; and two others 



