APPENDIX. 



531 



finger. On examining them I found them load- 

 ed Avith the spermaceti and oil; and some had 

 corresponding arteries. They were most probably 

 lymphatics ; and I should therefore suppose that 

 their contents had been absorbed from the cells 

 of the head. We may the more readily suppose 

 this, from finding many of the cells or chambers 

 almost empty ; and as we may reasonably believe 

 that this animal had been some time out of the 

 seas in which it could procure proper food, it had 

 perhaps lived on the superabundance of its oil. 



The solid masses are what are brought home ia 

 casks for spermaceti. 



The skin in this order of animals consists of a 

 cuticle and cutis. The cuticle is somewhat simi- 

 lar to that on the sole of the human foot, and ap- 

 pears to be made up of a number of layers, which 

 separate by slight puti^efaction ; but this I suspect 

 arises in some degree from there being a succession 

 of cuticles formed. It has no degree of elasticity 

 or toughness, but tears easily ; nor do its fibres 

 appear to have any particular direction. The in- 

 ternal stratum is tough and thick, and in the 

 Spermaceti Whale its internal surface, when sepa- 

 rated from the cutis, is just like coarse velvet, each 

 pile standing firm in its place ; but this is not so 

 distinguishable in some of the others, although it 

 appears rough from the innumerable perforations. 



It is the cuticle that gives colour to the animal ; 

 and in parts that are dark I think I have seen a 

 dirty-coloured substance washed away in the se- 

 paration of the cuticle from the cutis, which must 



