200 Catodontid.e. MAMMALIA. Catuuoatid.e. 
Several otlier species of the genus Physalus are indi- 
cated in the Museum catalogue. 
Family 1 1.— CATODONTIDMU. 
The members of tliis family are sometimes described 
under the synonymous and equally distinctive title of 
Ph 3 'seterid 8 e, which includes the cachalot or sperma- 
cetes, and the short-headed whales. These animals have 
the nostrils separate and longitudinally disposed ; their 
palate is smooth and destitute of baleen ; whilst a still 
more characteristic feature is seen in the presence of 
numerous large conical teeth in the lower jaw (fig. 79), 
the upper jaw being edentulous, or furnished with mere 
rudiments of teeth beneath tlie gums. The head, 
though comparatively short in some, is enormously 
developed. The intestine has no coecum. 
THE NORTHERN SPERM WHALE {Catodon macro- 
cephalus), or Common Cachalot — Plate 27, fig. 87 — is 
also known as the Blunt-headed Cachalot, and the Sper- 
maceti whale ; generically, it is at once recognized by its 
elongated head, whicli is abruptly truncated anteriorly, 
the blowers being placed near the e.vtremity of the snout, 
and the dorsal hump is rounded. In its native haunts, 
this huge monster is found in the northern seas, but 
Fiff. 79. 
Jaw-bone of the Cachalot (Catodon inacrocephalus). 
it occasional]}" ^•isits our own shores. An example was 
cast ashore on Cramond island, in the Frith of Forth, 
on the 22d of December, 179G ; its length was fifty- 
four feet, and tlie greatest circumference, at a point 
immediately beyond the eyes, thirty feet ; the upper 
j’aw being ascertained to be five feet longer than the 
lower, which measured ten feet, and was provided with 
twenty-three teeth on either side. The largest tooth 
was eight inches long, its circumferential measurement 
being the same. It was described and accurately 
figured by Mr. James Robertson, in the GOth volume of 
the Philosophical Transactions The occurrence of 
the Cachalot on the shores of tlie Orkney and Zetland 
islands is by no means a rare circumstance, but it is 
very seldom taken on the English coasts. That it does 
occasionally visit our shores, has been satisfactorily 
shown by Dr. Collingwood, to whom naturalists are 
indebted — to use his own words — for resuscitating “ a 
still-born record of the Spermaceti -wliale,” which he 
found in a document contained in Sir Joseph Banks’ 
copy of the Philosophical Transactions in the British 
IMuseum. It is entitled an “ Extract from a letter 
from Walberswick, on the coast of Suffolk, dated 
March 7, 1788,” and runs as follows : — “ A whale 
appearing on our coast is a rare phenomenon. The 
most extraordinary instance that ever happened of this 
sort was in February, 17G3, after a hard gale of wind 
northerly, when no less than twelve whales, which 
undoubtedly came out of the Northern Ocean, were 
towed and driven on shore at the following places, all 
of them dead, and in a high state of putrefaction, 
excepting one.” This notable exception was “ one at 
Hope Point, in the River Thames. This was the only 
one seen alive. He ran aground and smothered him- 
self in the mud, and was afterwards made a show of in 
the Greenland Docks. These were all of the sperma- 
ceti kind, and of the male gender ;” “and it is remark- 
able,” adds Dr. Collingwood, “ that out of the twelve, 
(or rather ten, for two stranded on the Dutch coast,) 
six were found upon the coast of Kent. From an old 
engraving of the above specimen in my possession, to 
which a scale is attached, it appears to have been near 
sixty feet long. Within a much more recent period, 
a small Cachalot was captured in the Thames, near 
Gravesend, but I am not in possession of any particu- 
lars of the event.” The Cachalot is gregarious in its 
habits, large multitudes of them herding together. By 
the South Sea whalers they are termed “schools;” some- 
times all consisting of females, and at other of males 
not fully grown. One or two large “ bulls,” or “ school- 
masters,” as they are ridiculously termed, usually 
accompany the female herds, and Mr. Beale reckons 
that he has seen as many as six hundred individuals of 
the southern species in a single school ! The female 
is comparatively small, and produces one, and some- 
times two young, at a birth. The two recorded by 
M. F. Cuvier, which were brought forth by a whale 
I stranded on the French coast, near D’Audierne, were 
1 each about ten feet in length The young' are of a 
deep black colour, and mottled with whitish spots. 
THE SOUTHERN SPERM WHALE {Catodon pohj- 
cyphus) very closely resembles the northern species, 
both in respect of its size and habits. It has the same 
large head and characteristic jaws, the lower being 
j lodged in a groove of the upper, whilst the crowns of 
the teeth fit into corresponding socket-like cavities, so 
as to be entirely concealed when the mouth is closed. 
The southern Sperm whale, or Cachalot, occasionally 
attains a length of seventy or eighty feet, and a specimen 
has been minutely described by Mr. Beale which mea- 
sured eighty-four feet. The skin is usually smooth and 
dark coloured, almost black; but piebald varieties occur, 
as well as other difierences in the depth of shading. “ Old 
bulls,” sa\’s Mr. Beale in his work on the Sperm whale, 
“ have generally a portion of grey on the nose, imme- 
diately above the fore-part of the u]iper jaw, when they 
are said to be grey-lieaded.” The same authority 
observes that the head — which we stated in our introduc- 
tory observations to contain a large quantity of oil — is 
“ specifically lighter than any other part of the body, 
and will always have a tendency to rise at least so far 
above the surlace as to elevate the nostril or blow-hole 
sufliciently for all purposes of respiration ; and, more 
than this, a very slight effort on the part of the whale 
would only be necessary to raise the whole of the 
anterior fiat surface of the nose out of the water. At 
very regular intervals of time, the snout emerges, and 
from the extremity of the nose the spout is thrown up, 
and at a distance apj)ears thick, low, bushy, and white. 
It is formed of the expired air, forcibly ejected through 
the blow-hole, and acquii'cs its white colour from 
