ORDER CETACEA. 465 



dare not approach the body of the Cachalot when it is 

 floating lifeless on the surface of the water. 



This redoubtable animal does not appear to have chosen 

 any particular latitude for the scene of his tyrannical de- 

 vastations. He is found in the Ocean and the Mediter- 

 ranean, in the seas of Spitzbergen and Groenland, in 

 Davis's Straits, and in the greatest part of the Northern 

 Atlantic Ocean. It has been seen even in the British 

 Channel, near Newfoundland, not far from the Cape of 

 Good Hope, near the Channel of Mozambique, near Mada- 

 gascar, the Isle of France, and the northern coasts of New 

 Holland. It has also been found on the coasts of New Zea- 

 land, near Guatimala, around the Gallapagos Isles, Mocha 

 and Chili, in the Sea of Brazil, and near Cape Finisterre. 



The usual length of the Macrocephalus is upwards of 

 seventy feet. The circumference in the largest part of the 

 body is fifty-two feet three inches. Its height is some- 

 times more than a third of its total length. 



The head of this Cachalot is one of the most voluminous 

 known of any existing animal. It forms a gross and 

 bulky mass, truncated in front, and almost cubic. It is 

 more than a third of the length of the whole animal. 



At the bottom of the surface of this immense cube, is the 

 aperture of the mouth, which is long and narrow. The upper 

 jaw is sensibly longer and wider than the under which it 

 surrounds, it is more than eighteen feet long and about 

 five feet wide ; the lower is about fifteen feet long, and not 

 more than a foot in width. 



The number of teeth which furnish the lower jaw, only 

 varies from twenty to thirty according to the age of the 

 animal ; they are strong, conical, and slightly curvilinear 

 towards the interior of the throat, and externally they 

 have the colour and hardness of ivory; their circumference 

 in the widest part, is about three inches and a half; that 

 portion of these teeth which is out of the gums is received 



