Sir Everard Home’s account of the skeletons , &c. 2 6g 
The bones of the skeleton, when mounted, give us a form 
very different from what is met with in the whale tribe. It 
will be seen from the annexed drawing, that it may be com- 
pared to a boat without a keel, with the bottom uppermost ; 
so that in the sea, the middle part of the back is the highest 
point in the water ; and as the lungs are extended to great 
length on the two sides, close to the spine, they furnish the 
means of the animal becoming buoyant, and when no mus- 
cular exertion is made, the body will naturally float in an 
horizontal posture. 
When we consider that this animal is the only one yet 
known that grazes at the bottom of the sea, (if the expression 
may be allowed), and is not supported on four legs, we must 
admit that it will require a particular mode of balancing its 
body over the weeds upon which it feeds. 
The hippopotamus, an animal that uses the same kind of 
food, from the strength of its limbs supports itself under 
water ; and the dugong, as a compensation for not being able 
to support its body on the ground, has this means of steadily 
suspending itself in the sea peculiar to itself, the centre of 
the back forming the point of suspension, similar to the 
fulcrum of a pair of scales. This peculiarity of position ex- 
plains the form of the jaws, which are bent down at an angle 
with the skull, unlike the jaws of other animals. This new 
mode of floating, when compared with that of other sea 
animals, makes a beautiful variety. The balsena mysticetus, 
that goes to the bottom of unfathomable depths to catch in its 
whale-bone net the shrimps that live in that situation, is sur- 
rounded by blubber not unlike a cork jacket. 
The enormous spermaceti whale, whose prey is not so 
