OEDEE OF OETACEA. 69 



and been stranded, the mother, quite taken up with her efforts to 

 save it, is not long in sharing its lot. 



The Cachalot is found in a great many different seas. For 

 instance, in the latitudes of SjDitzbergen, near the North Cape and 

 the coasts of Finnmark ; the seas of Greenland ; the greatest part 

 of the South Atlantic Ocean ; the Britannic Gulf (in 1720, one 

 of these animals, driven by a storm, was stranded near the mouth 

 of the Elbe) ; the banks of Newfoundland ; the Gulf of Gascony, 

 &c. We hear, from time to time, at long intervals, that a solitary 

 example of this creature has been seen on our o^vn shores 

 (French). In 1784 thirty-two Cachalots were stranded on the 

 coast of Audierne (Brittany). They had been preceded by a 

 multitude of fish and of Porpoises, and their beUowings or 

 roarings were heard for more than four kilometres inland. Thej' 

 remained alive on the sand for about twenty-four hours. In 1767 

 a Cachalot was taken in the bay of the Somme, near St. Valery. 

 Another ran ashore, in 1741, at the mouth of the Avons, on the 

 coast of Bayonne. 



It is in the seas of India, the Moluccas, Japan, and the Corea, that 

 the Americans and the English pursue the Cachalot — a dangerous 

 undertaking, on accoimt of the agility, the suddenness of the 

 movements, and the power of this animal. The exj^edition lasts 

 from three to four years, and it is full of hazard- — of perils without 

 equal in other maritime enterjDrises. The Cachalot does not flee 

 from the enemy as does the Whale ; it makes a great fight for its 

 life. With its enormous head, a sort of gigantic battering-ram, 

 it strikes and smashes the boats. With one blow of its powerful 

 tail, it sweeps away and casts into the air everj^thing it finds in 

 its waj. The taking of Cachalots is very important in a com- 

 mercial point of view. One of these animals can furnish a 

 himdred tons of oil. The price per ton being two hundred and 

 fifty francs (£10) ; the total value of the oil supplied by one of 

 these creatures is twenty-five thousand francs (£1,000). Com- 

 merce and the arts derive from the Cachalot other articles besides 

 oil ; for instance, ivory, ambergris, and spermaceti. 



The teeth furnish a sort of ivory, but this is of inferior quality. 



The ambergris is only a kind of intestinal product, or rather 

 a part of the Cachalot's food, incompletely digested. It is the 

 effect of a disease, and since it is just as well to call things by their 



