14 



Cuvier and otliers have thought that thej could discover in 

 their specimens of the upper jaw, a series o£ alveoles intended 

 for the reception of the conical teeth of the under jaw. Indeed, 

 Dr. Alderson expressly mentions the existence of such cavities 

 in the upper jaw of Sir C. Constable's whale. Beale, however, on 

 his examination of the skeleton of this yery same whale, came 

 afterwards to the conclusion that there were no indications of 

 sockets in the upper jaw. I imagine, therefore, that as Dr. 

 Alderson was describing from the specimen when it was first 

 cast ashore, the cavities of the upper jaw, into which he says, 

 " the teeth of the lower jaw fitted when the mouth was closed," 

 must have merely been cavities in the fleshy lining of the palate. 

 We shall see that such cavities really exist in a new kind of 

 sperm whale hereafter to be described. I have also carefully 

 examined this matter in the skeleton now before us ; and, as 

 irregular and linear cavities may be discovered in the roof of the 

 mouth, impressed along the roof of each maxillary in a line 

 nearly parallel to its junction with the inter-maxillary, I have 

 come to the conclusion that these cavities, although not exactly 

 corresponding in situation or form to the teeth of the under 

 jaw, may yet possibly mark the place of the bottoms of those 

 sockets in the gums, with which all observers of the sperm whale 

 in a fresh state, say the upper jaw is furnished for the purpose 

 of receiving the teeth of the under jaw. 



The accounts given by old "^Titers, of the voracity and fierce- 

 ness of sperm whales, are completely contradicted by late 

 observers, who have recorded that these vast animals are timid 

 and inoffensive, as, indeed, might have been imagined from their 

 having no teeth in the upper jaw. Beale asserts, and it is a fact 

 in which we may have the greater confidence, from its having 

 been ascertained by personal observation, that the sperm whale 

 of the Pacific feeds almost entirely on cephalopod moUusca or 

 squid ; and, that when near land, it sometimes, though very 

 rarely, devours small fishes. 



Books of Natural History, in general, make the grand char- 

 acteristic of sperm whales to consist in the utter deficiency of 



