114 PYGMY SPERM WHALE PIERS. 



Conclusion. — Taking into consideration all the evidence, I 

 think we may quite safely conclude that Ded-men-akrpart of 

 the Micmacs was the true Sperm Whale and that it formerly 

 occurred to some extent at least in our Nova Scotian waters. 



Teeth of this cetacean should oe searched for in some of the 

 Indian shell-heaps or kitchen-middens in Nova Scotia, as the 

 natives would no doubt preserve such relics of an unusual mar- 

 ine animal if one had been stranded on our coast. 



In the DesBrisay collection of Indian remains collected in 

 Lunenburg County, N. S., now in the Provincial Museum, is 

 a small tooth, a good deal corroded, which has a general re- 

 semblance to one from an exceedingly young Sperm Whale.* 

 But it may even prove on further examination to be merely 

 a young Bear's canine tooth, which somewhat closely resembles 

 the former. I do not believe it belonged to a Black-fish (Gloh- 

 icephala mclas) or any other cetacean I happen to be familiar 

 with, and it is decidedly not a tooth of a Pygmy Sperm Whale. 

 It measures 1.87 in. (47.5 mm.) in greatest length; its diameter, 

 midway in length, is .48 in. (12.5 mm.); it projected out of the 

 gum ,57 in. (14.5 mm.), and the conical free end (crown) is 

 very strongly incurved; 



The Provincial Museum possesses several Sperm Whale teeth, 

 but theyhave all been brought by whalers from the southern 

 whaling rounds. 



Provincial Museum, Halifax, N. S., 

 9th February. 1920. 



•The smallest Sperm Whale on record, taken on the [New England coast, was one IG feet 

 long, taken near New Bedford in 1842. 



