BRIEF SKETCH OF THE TOOTHED WHALES. 95 



ocean prey to a large extent on cuttle-fishes. Thus the Sperm- 

 Whale feeds on these for the most part, though it also swallows 

 fishes, such as the cod, albicore, and bonito. It has been sup- 

 posed that this whale descends in the water and opens its mouth 

 widely, so as to expose the teeth as a lure, as already indicated, 

 but the great numbers and often large size of the cuttle-fishes 

 in the regions frequented by the Sperm- Whale make capture by 

 the ordinary method probable, and Lillie has supposed that 

 certain marks and abrasions on the skin of the head of this 

 whale are due to the suckers of gigantic cuttle-fishes. That 

 teeth are not absolutely necessary for the capture of the squids 

 and other cuttle-fishes, the case of the Bottle-noses (Hyperoodon) 

 sufficiently proves, since they are practically toothless ; yet to a 

 large extent they live on these creatures (e. g. Gonatus fabricii). 

 Holothurians are also found in their stomachs.* The Narwhal 

 feeds on similar forms, besides small fishes and crabs. The 

 Susu of India, again, preys on fishes, such as Wallago, Sacco- 

 hranchus, and species of Clupea, and Dr. John Anderson, who 

 has written an important memoir on this form, finds that it 

 pursues the fishes into the paddy-fields, and thus grains of rice 

 may readily get into its stomach. The Porpoise, White Whale, 

 and the Dolphins, again, live mainly on fishes, the destruction 

 of food-fishes by the Porpoises alone on our shores being note- 

 worthy ; and, as digestion goes on rapidly, the lenses of the eyes 

 and the otoliths are soon the only recognizable parts in the first 

 stomach. No provision, indeed, exists for the passage of other 

 than semi-fluid material into the gut, for the pyloric opening is 

 minute. The most predatory of the whole series, however, is 

 the Killer (Orca), the only one which feeds on animals with 

 warm blood, though it varies its diet by occasionally devour- 

 ing fishes. This powerful Whale swiftly pursues Porpoises and 

 Dolphins, seizes them with its powerful teeth, and swallows 

 them entire. The same fate befalls the nimble Seals, the skins 

 of which, turned inside out, it ejects by-and-by from its stomach, 

 after the manner of birds of prey with balls of hair, or like the 



* It is curious that the Teleostean " dolphin " (Coryphcsna) also feeds on 

 cuttle-fishes. This may be of interest to those, like Dr. Jungklaus, who 

 think that the absence of the first stomach in the Ziphoids is associated with 

 their diet of cuttle-fishes. 



