REVIEWS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
3*25 
This will satisfactorily account for the above and other corrections in Gallic 
names and words. Our gay neighbours across the Channel might profit philo- 
logically , as well as cetologically, from Mr. Beale’s book. 
Lacepede divides the Sperm Whale into no less than eight species, Brisson 
into seven, Linnaeus into four, Bonnaterre into six, and Desmarest, we believe, 
into nine! At p. 14 we have representations of the outline of this animal, the 
one after F. Cuvier, the other according to Beale and others. These two 
figures differ materially ; and no wonder, seeing how difficult a matter it must 
obviously be to sketch such a creature in a natural attitude. 
The opinion that tne Sperm Whale throws up water with its spout, has been 
universally believed from the days of the early naturalists to the present time. 
But though Pliny was spared the trouble of original investigation in the days 
of yore, and although M. F. Cuvier still propagates the doctrine, it appears 
(p. 16) from the personal observations of our author, on the spoutings of hundreds 
of Whales in the North and South Pacific Oceans, that not one ever ejected water 
in the manner represented. The error has very naturally arisen from the fact 
of dense clouds of vapour being sent forth by the “ spout”—so that if it does 
not exactly “ end in smoke,” it appears, after all, to be mere vapouring. 
Mr. Beale passes a high encomium on Professor Bell’s British Quadrupeds; 
but complains (p. 18), that while Sir William Jardine has “ thought proper to 
fill his chapter on the natural history of the Sperm Whale entirely from the first 
edition of this work, he does not appear to be convinced of its veracity, and at 
the same time (I am compelled to observe) to display a considerable want of 
accurate information on the subject.” The work here alluded to is a volume of 
the Naturalist’s Library , noticed in our Vol. II., p. 51. 
One of the most striking personal peculiarities—so to speak—of the Sperm 
Whale, is the disproportionate and apparently unwieldy bulk of its head. But 
though the contrivances of Man are imperfect, and open to correction, Nature’s 
works are surpassingly beautiful. Thus the Whale’s bulky head, at first sight a 
lamentable piece of mismanagement, is the huge animal’s best safe-guard, con¬ 
sisting, as it does, of a comparatively light frame-work, filled with an oily 
substance considerably lighter than water. 
It is conceived (p. 35) that the Whale, swimming merrily along with the 
glistening-white roof of the mouth and tongue exposed, is an object so irresistibly 
attractive, as to cause numbers of the finny tribes to flock to witness the spectacle, 
the only fee demanded for the exhibition being the lives of the audaciously 
curious little creatures. The Crocodile, the American Ant-eater, and the Dragon¬ 
fly adopt a similar stratagem, with the same view, and on the same liberal terms. 
Our author fortifies this position by the fact that Whales will remain in “ good 
case” long after they have been deprived of sight, or after severe injuries to the 
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