LOOLAED WITAILES. 33 
to look about them. When descending, they re-enter the water head first, instead 
of falling helplessly on their sides like the larger whales. Their ordinary food, 
according to the same observer, consists of a bluish white cuttle-fish, 6 inches long 
and 3 inches in circumference, and pointed towards the tail. The stomachs of 
those whales that were examined contained nothing but remains of these cuttles. 
In their search after food it appears that the bottlenose-whales descend to great 
depths, as they remain under water for a long period, and blow very heavily 
upon reaching the surface. When wounded, they will sometimes remain below 
for as much as two hours at a time, after which they will come up apparently 
untired. 
The bottlenose yields spermaceti, and an oil very similar to 
sperm-oil and capable of being used for the same purposes. An adult 
male will produce about two hundred weight of spermaceti and two tons of oil. 
The protuberance on the front of the head of the female contains a small quantity 
of colourless oil which is twice the density of that obtained from the blubber ; 
while in the male the same region is composed of solid fat. 
A fossil bottlenose-whale, apparently closely allied to the living species, has 
left its remains in the Pliocene crag deposits of the eastern coast of England. 
The rare Cetacean, known as Cuvier’s whale (Ziphius cavirostris), 
differs from the bottlenose in having a pair of well-developed conical 
teeth at the extremity of the lower jaw, which are directed forwards and upwards. 
In the skull there are but slight indications of the longitudinal bony crests of the 
bottlenose ; while the beak is longer and much more solid in structure, owing to 
the ossification of certain cartilages and their fusion with the adjacent bones. 
When viewed from above, their beak is triangular in form, gradually tapering 
from its broad base to its narrow extremity. A further point of difference from 
the bottlenose is to be found in the circumstance that only the first three, instead 
of the whole seven, of the vertebra of the neck are united together. The colour 
is believed to be black above and white below. This whale appears to be known 
only from stranded specimens, which have been obtained from regions as remote 
from one another as the Shetland Islands, the Cape of Good Hope, Eastern South 
America, and New Zealand. Sir W. Turner appears, therefore, to be fully justified 
in his opinion that its distribution is as extensive as that of the sperm-whale. 
Products. 
Cuvier’s Whale. 
THe BEAKED WHALES. 
Genus Mesoplodon. 
The beaked whales derive their English name from the great development of 
the rostral portion of the skull, which is long and narrow, and formed of extremely 
solid and ivory-like bone; while they take their scientific title from the presence 
of a pair of teeth generally situated near the middle of each side of the lower jaw. 
Each of these two teeth is pointed and much flattened, sometimes being elongated 
into a strap-like form, so as to overhang the beak of the skull; their position is 
variable, but generally some distance behind the extremity of the jaw. The skull 
has the same curving crests over the aperture of the nostrils as in the bottlenose, 
VOL. I1I.—3 
