ORDER CETACEA. 489 



we should be tempted to suppose the animals totally deprived 

 of smell, since there are neither crypta nor mucous fol- 

 licles, nor projecting lamina?. Neither do these organs 

 communicate with any sinus, nor exhibit any apparatus 

 adapted for the transmission of odorant sensations. Their 

 interior is covered with a dry skin, of little sensibility, and 

 capable of resisting without injury, the repeated currents 

 of salt water with which it is deluged. 



It is, however, very certain that the Whale does through 

 this organ, or by some other means, receive the odorant cor- 

 puscles, and that even at a distance it can distinguish the 

 de gres and qualities of odours. 



A curious fact in proof of this position, is cited by Lace- 

 pede in his natural history of the Cetacea. 



The Vice admiral Pleville-le-Peley, being one day at sea 

 with his fishers, perceived some whales above the horizon. 

 He prepared to give way to them, but the quantity of cod 

 which was in the boat, having spread there a great quantity 

 of stinking and putrid water, Pleville-le-Peley ordered this 

 pestiferous water to be flung into the sea : the Whales 

 instantly made off and disappeared. He tried this experi- 

 ment several times on the approach of Whales, and invaria- 

 bly with the same result. From this we may conclude that 

 these animals have a perception, even at a distance, of 

 odorating bodies. 



In speaking on this subject, we may observe that the Eus- 

 tachian tube of the ear, furnishes an interior communica- 

 tion from the tympanum to the mouth, and then ascends 

 towards the summit of the spiracle into the cavity of which 

 it leads ; the part of this tube which is near the ear, exhibits 

 at its internal face, a hole tolerably large, opening into an 

 empty space. This hollow is prolonged into different 

 sinuses, and these sinuses and this cavity, are lined with a 

 blackish, mucous, and tender membrane. Now the odorating 

 emanations easily penetrating to this hollow and these 

 Vol. IV. 2 K 



