PYGMY SPERM WHALE PIERS. 109 



ed and cut up the animals and obtained much oil 

 from the blubber; and one which they opened contamed 

 a foetus. They also called the animal Ded-men-ak-paj-jet, 

 agreed that it was the same species as that taken 

 in Minas Basin, and that it was extremely rare, but that 

 old Indians told them it had been taken years before. It also 

 had a dorsal-fin. 



The rare animals described by Jeddore and Soolian Bill were 

 not Black-fish (Globicephala melas) which is the only other dis- 

 tinctly "blunt-headed" cetacean it might be confused with, and 

 which is a common species, well known to the Indians as Sarh'- 

 a-dee'-meekw, which means "John Fish," but why so-called is 

 not known. The Bottlenose Dolphin {Tursiops truncatus) has 

 too much beak to be particularly designated as the "blunt-head." 

 We are therefore led to conclude that these very rare cet- 

 aceans referred to by our Micmacs, must have been the Pygmy 

 Sperm Whale {K. breviceps), which answers the Indians' rough 

 description in having a blunt head, a dorsal-fin, and being about 

 twelve or fifteen feet long, black in colour, and very rare in these 

 waters. The presence of the dorsal-fin shows it was not the 

 true Sperm Whale, for which apparently our Indians also have 

 a descriptive name. This is a related subject to which- we will 

 now refer. 



Sperm Whale (P. macrocephalus). 



Did the True Sperm Whale formerly occur on the Nova 

 Scotian co,ast? — Whether the huge Sperm Whale or Cachalot 

 (Physeier macrocephalus Linn.) ever occurred on our Nova 

 Scotian coast, accidentally or otherwise, in the early years when 

 its range was very much less restricted than now, is a point 

 which is not definitely settled in my mind, although from evid 

 ence at hand I am very decidedly of the opinion that it must 

 have. In a paper like this, dealing with a related species, it may 

 not be altogether out of place to give a little attention to the 

 subject. 



Many years ago the true Sperm Whale was reported all along 

 the New England coast as far north as Casco Bay, Maine, 

 where it is recorded that one was stranded in 1668.* Casco 



♦G. M. Alien, List of Mammalia of N. E., Occ. Papers Bost. Poc. Nat. Hist. 7, pt. 3, Boat. 

 1904; and G. Brown Goode, Fisheries anl Fishing Industries of U. S., sec. 1, pace 9, Wash.,, 

 1884. 



