REMARKS. 
15 
of most animals possess ; and on this account the female 
heretofore may have been taken for a different species 
of the cachalot, when her size has been compared with 
that of the large male, particularly when it is known 
that the female of the common Greenland whale is in 
most instances the larger. 
The Baron Cuvier, in his remarks upon the sperm 
whale, states, “ that he is another of those giants of the 
main, whose colossal structure and tyrannical dominion 
render them truly formidable ; this cachalot is more 
lively and active than the generality of the cetacea, and 
is only less bulky than the common whale, of which he 
is a most dangerous rival, though less powerful than 
that first of the marine mammalia.” This assertion is 
another instance, showing how correctness and its 
opposite may be placed together ; for although some of 
these remarks are true, as far as relates to the superior 
activity of the sperm whale, yet, when it is observed 
that he is “ less powerful ” and “ less bulky ” than “ his 
dangerous rival,” we are led to suppose that the learned 
author had depended too much on the mistaken evidence 
of others ; for Scoresby, in his account of the size and 
length of the Greenland whale, states that about seventy, 
or seventy-two feet, would measure the longest that he 
saw ; while a male spermaceti whale, which we captured 
at the Japan fishery, measured the enormous length of 
eighty-four feet, and its circumference, in this instance, 
was not less than that of a Greenland whale of the 
largest size ; so that, if size is to be taken into con- 
sideration to entitle either of them to claim the dominion 
