134 THE SPERM WHALES, GIANT AND PYGMY. 
Physeter being eliminated, none but the small sperm-whales 
are left in the Grayan tribe Physeterina, and they form a 
natural group for which the name /fogiine has been above 
proposed; while the apparently most essential characters 
have been first attributed to it. 
The genera Catodon and Meganeuron, distinguished, so far 
as known, solely by differences in the osseous development 
of the cervical vertebree, may better be conjoined provision- 
ally under the single generic name Physeter. 
The diagnoses of Kogia and Luphysetes do not appear to 
be the expressions of actual differences. 
7. The Species of Physeterins. The sperm whales, or 
Cachalots, according to Flower, " unlike the right-whales, are 
Fig. 1€5.* 
h 
A 
Physeter. 
essentially inhabitants of the tropical and warmer parts of 
Fig. 195 the temperate seas, and pass freely from one hem- 
isphere into another." They have been observed 
in every sea, wandering northward in the Pacific 
to the Straits of Bering ; in the Atlantic, straggling 
northward, at least as far as the coasts of Britain 
and the North Sea; aud in the southern hemi- 
sphere, they have been found rounding the capes, 
and passing from one ocean to the other. "Between the 
North Atlantie and the Australian seas there is no barrier 
interposed to animals of such great powers of locomotion." 
*Fig. 165. Outline - the Cachalot, — from Beale’s “Natural History of the 
See die 1839, p. 23; b, the situation of the case; c, the junk; d, the bunch of the 
e hu ac i, the ridge; * the — Ri thé tail or eto s. Between the 
pei eni line r blanket pieces; the 
T Fig. 166. Head se seen from the front; the ed forming the s wea are intended to 
represent the flat anterior part of the head. 
