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slices of the lower. We found in his maw some beaks of 
squids ( Sepia ), Under the skin was a coating of white fat^ 
an inch in thickness all over the body, and much thicker 
about the head ; this was peeled from the flesh with the skin, 
and thrown into a cask to melt into oil. All the cetaceous 
animals having warm blood, would be likely to be chilled by 
the coldness of the water, as they have no outward covering, 
such as fur or hair. God has therefore protected them by a 
thick coat of fat, which is a poor conductor of heat : the 
effect of this is, that their blood is as hot as that of any land 
animal, if not more so. We ate part of the flesh of our 
game ; it looked much like beef when raw, but was very 
dark when cooked : it was particularly tender, and ^' ate 
short,'' as it is called. I fancied it had something of the 
taste of reindeer venison, which I had eaten in New- 
foundland. This was a male, and one of large size. The 
colour was bluish black on the back, lead colour on the sides 
and fins, and white on the belly. The other that I saw 
caught was in the Gulf of Mexico ; the harpooning, the 
struggling, and the thumping of the tail were the same as in 
the former instance ; but this was a much smaller specimen, 
measuring only six feet in length : it was a female. It had 
thirty-eight teeth on each side of each jaw, making one hun- 
dred and fifty-two in all ; of this, too, I took a drawing. 
Whenever a dolphin is harpooned, the rest of the shoal 
vanish instantly, never staying to sympathize wdth the suf- 
ferer : indeed, sailors say that if one is wounded and escapes 
the harpoon, the rest immediately tear him to pieces with 
their serrated jaws, and devour him. I think it probable 
that some species of this tribe are yet undescribed. In going 
up the English Channel in 1832, when off the Devonshire 
coast, a large animal of the cetaceous kind suddenly ap- 
peared just under our bowsprit ; it swam along for about 
ten minutes (the vessel going before the wind at about five 
