of Amber grife, 237 
From what I have laid, we may eafily account for the many 
beaks, or pieces of beaks, of the Sepia found in ail ambergrife. 
T ne beak of the Sepia is a black horny fubftance, and there- 
fore pafles undigefted through the ftomach into the inteftmal 
canal, where it is mixed with the feces ; after which ic is either 
evacuated with them, or if thefe latter be preternatural! y re- 
tained, forms concretions with them, which render the animal 
fek and torpid, and produce an obftipation, which ends either 
in an abfcefs of the abdomen, as has been frequently obferved, 
or becomes fatal to the animal ; whence in both the cafes, 
on the burfting of its belly, that hardened fubftance, known 
under the name of ambergrife, is found fwimming on the fea, 
or thrown upon the coaft. 
From the preceding account, and my having conftantly found 
the above-mentioned beaks of the Sepia in all pieces ot ambergrife 
of any confiderable lize, I think we may venture to conclude, 
that all ambergrife is generated in the bowels of the Phyfeter 
Macrocephalus, or lpermaceti-whale, and there mixed with the 
beaks of the Sepia Odfopodia, which is the principal food of 
that whale ; and we may therefore define ambergrife to be 
the preternaturally hardened dung or feces of the Phyfeter 
municate to me his obfervations on this fubje£t, about ten years ago hooked a fper- 
maceti-whale that had in its mouth a targe fubftance with which he was unac- 
quainted, but which proved to be a dentaculum of the Sepia O<ftopodia, nearly 
27 feet long : this dentaculum however did not feem to be entire, one end of it 
appearing in fome meafure corroded by digeftion, fo that in its natural ftate it may 
have been a great deal ( onger. With regard to its being a dentaculum of the 
cuttle fifli, the fifliermen could not have been miftaken, as they themfelves often 
feed upon the fmaller fort of the fame Sepia. When we confider the enormous 
bulk of the dentaculum of the Sepia here fpoken of, we fliall ceafe to wonder at 
the common faying of the fifliermen, that the cuttle-fifti is the largeft fifh of the 
«cean. 
Macrocephalus* 
