104 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



coucealed by them. True and serviceable teeth are situated only 

 in the lower jaw, and are received into corresponding sockets 

 in the upper jaw. In aged males they are of great solidity and 

 size, attaining a weight of from two to four pounds each ; their 

 entire structure is ivory. This powerful armament shows us at 

 once that the food of the cachalot must be very different from 

 that of the whalebone cetaceans ; it generally consists of cuttle- 



Cuttle-fiBh (Sepia). 



fish, many kinds of which are ejected from its stomach when it 

 is attacked by the boats, as well as after death. Owing to the 

 great projection of the snout beyond the lower jaw, it may be 

 requisite for this whale to turn on its side or back to seize its 

 more bulky prey ; a supposition strengthened by the fact that, 

 when the animal attacks a boat with its mouth, it invariably 

 assumes a reversed posture, carrying the lower jaw above the 

 object it is attempting to bite. As long as it continues on the 

 surface of the sea, the cachalot casts from its nostril a constant 

 succession of spouts, at intervals of ten or fifteen seconds. As 

 in all whales, the jets are not, as frequently imagined, water- 

 columns, but a thick white mist ejected by one continual effort 

 to the height of six or eight feet, and rushing forth with a sound 

 resembling a moderate surf upon a smooth beach. The peculiar 

 fat or sperm which renders the cachalot so valuable, is chiefly 

 situated in the head. Junk is the name given by the fishermen 

 to a solid mass of soft, yellow, and oily fat, weighing between 

 two and three tons, based on the upper jaw, and forming the 

 front and lower part of the snout ; while the cavity called case 

 is situated beneath and to the right of the spouting canal, and 

 corresponds to nearly the entire length of that tube. It is 

 rilled with a very delicate web of cellular tissue, containing in 



