HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Library of the

Museum of

Comparative Zoology

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HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION

OF TITE

SKELETON

OP A

NEW SPERM WHiCl.E.

' /

LATELY SET UP IN /

THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM

BY

WILLIAM S. WALL, Curator;

TOGETHER WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF A NEW GENUS OF
SPEKM WHALES CALLED

EUPHYSETES.

TWO PLATES,

'H 'in MOi Kal icijTog kTnaatvy fi'eya Saifiojv

'E^ a\bg, old re iroWd rpl^ei kXvtoq 'AiJ.(piTpiTr}.

JYDNEY:
W. R, PIDDINGTON, BOOKSELLER,

GEORGE STREET.
PRINTED BY KEMP AND FAIRFAX.

185L

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NOTICE.

As it is very desirable that the Collection in the Australian
MirsETiM of the Whales, Dolphins, and Dugongs of the Southern
Hemisphere, should be made as complete as possible, the Officers
of whaling vessels and persons residing on the sea coast are earnestly
requested to give notice to the Curator, Mr. W. S. Wall, of all
specimens that are procurable, or of which the bones may have
been discovered on the beach. Loose bones even are valuable,
and particularly skulls.

The Curator will also thankfully receive all Zoological or
Geological specimens which the owners may feel disposed to
present to the Museum. And the Museums of Great Britain and
Foreign Countries may effect an exchange of duplicates, by address-
ing a letter on the subject to the Secretary of the Australian
Museum, Sydney.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

Chapter I. On the Catodon Australis 1

Chapter II. On the Euphysetes Grayii 37

Chapter III. Concluding Remarks , 59

CHAPTER I.

ON THE CATODON AUSTRALIS.

Whatever friendship or familicarity whales and dolphins
may, according to ancient writers, have had with men in the
olden time, it is very certain that the human species, with the
exception of a few sailors, have very littie acquaintance with
their "fat friends" in these days. Even whalers in general know
little more of them than their oil. While a lion or a tiger has
become quite a vulgar animal in our menageries, there are
few persons who have seen a live cetacean in captivity, except
Gesner, or rather Rondelet, (whom Gesner, in the passage
alluded to, seems to be quoting,) who states, that in his day,
his countrymen were in the habit of carrying live dolphins as
far into the interior as Lyons ! It may indeed, happen, that
the veracity of old Conrad's book, is as little to be trusted to
in this story,* as in its pictorial representations of the whale
tribe. At least, in the present railroad times, when a live
hippopotamus is sporting in the midst of London, the most of
the external aspect of a cetacean that any Cockney has yet
seen, has been presented to his wondering gaze by some
distorted skin. And this is one of the reasons why the figures
of the sperm whale given by Beale and Frederic Cuvier are
so widely different from each other, as to make it almost
incredible that they should have b^een intended for the same
species. By such misshapen masses of stuffing so little accurate
information is afforded to the zoologist, that he is of necessity
obliged to have recourse to the skeleton.

But when he takes this step in search of knowledge, the
naturalist finds the osteology of cetaceous animals to be a very
difficult pursuit, not merely on account of the general

* Hist. Anim., 1558, lib. iv. p. 387.
B

2

unwieldiness of the skeletons^ but of the time and trouble
necessary to extract the oil with which their bones are
saturated, and which makes the preparation of them, as I can
vouch, most offensive to the senses. Perfect skeletons of the
order of Cetacea, or more correctly Cete, are, therefore, in fact,
very rare in museums. Of animals said to be cachalots or
sperm whales, perhaps the most perfect skeleton hitherto
described, is the one said by Beale to belong to Sir Clif-
ford Constable, Bart., of Burton Constable, in York-
shire. Its carcass was cast ashore on the coast of that
county in 1825, and was described in the same year by Dr.
Alderson, in a paper read before the Cambridge Philosophical
Society.

Beale was the surgeon of a whaler, who having made some
notes on the habits of the sperm whale of the Northern
Pacific, determined on his return to England, in 1883, to give
an account of its osteology. This, however, he appears to have
studied for the first and only time, not in any of those
numerous whales he had seen killed on the coast of Japan,
but in Sir Clifford Constable's Yorkshire specimen, the
skeleton of which had been set up apparently in a very
creditable manner, by a Mr Wallis, of Hull, many years after
the animal had been cast ashore. Now, this Yorkshire
skeleton, we shall give good reasons for believing to be that of an
animal different not merely from our Sydney sperm, but even
from the true sperm whale of the coasts of Europe; nor is it likely
to be the same as that of the sperm whale of Japan. Beale, was
no doubt, led into his mistake by agreeing with most
observers since the time of Cuvier, in considering Lacepede's
three genera, Catodon, Pkysalus, and Physeter,^ and the

* Physeter and Physalus are classical words to express the blowing of
whales, and, therefore, are names applicable to all Cetacea. Catodon is a
modern name invented by Artedi, and adopted by Linnaeus, to express what
is more peculiar to sperm whales, namely, their possession of teeth only in the
under jaw. The French name cachalot, is, according to Cuvier, derived from
the Basque word cachau, signifying tooth. It may be here observed, that the
Basques had a right to name the animal, as they appear to have been the first
professional fishermen of the sperm whale, the valuable products of which were
comparatively unknown to the ancients.

several species said to belong to them, as all referable to one
species, namely, the Physeter macrocephalus of Cuvier. But
Cuvier himself was in doubt whether the cachalot of the
Southern Pacific might not be specifically different from that
of the Northern Atlantic. He says that it is for naturalists to
judge whether the differences observed by him in the inferior
jaw of an Antarctic cachalot, and the under jaw of a sperm
whale cast ashore on the coast of France, result from a
mere distinction in age or sex, or from a specific difference.
And he says, further, that he does not imagine that
naturalists will be able to decide this question until
they shall have been in possession of a complete head
of the Antarctic cachalot, to compare with that of the
Northern Atlantic animal, or until they shall, at least, have
been in possession of good drawings of the external figures of
both these cetaceans. Mr. Gray, of the British Museum,
in No. XIII. of the Zoology of the Antarctic Voyage of the
Erebus and Terror, which was made under the command
of Sir J. C. Ross, — a work that has more reference to the
external appearance, than to the anatomy of whales — also says,
in 1846, "I have no doubt, from the analogy of other whales,
that when we shall have had the opportunity of accurately
comparing the bones, and the various proportions of the parts
of the northern and southern kinds of sperm, we shall find
them distinct. Quoy gives an engraving of a drawing of a
sperm whale which was given him by an English captain,
and which is probably the southern whale. He calls it
Physeter 2^olycyphus, because its back appears to be broken
into a series of humps, and Desmoulins re-names it Physeter
AustraUsJ' Mr. Gray, moreover,, makes a family of *"' the
toothed whales," under the name of Catodo?itidcs, and to this
family he assigns three genera, viz., Catodon, Kogia, and
Physeter — their types being, respectively, the Catodon macro-
cephalus, or sperm whale of the Northern Atlantic ; the
Kogia breviceps, or short-headed sperm whale of the Cape of
Good Hope; and the Physeter Tursio, or Black -fish of the
North Sea. Now the larger skeleton lately set up by me in the

Sydney Museum clearly belongs to a species of the genus Cato-
do7i ; and the problem to be solved is, whether it be identical or
not, as a species, with the Catodon macroceplialus abovemen-
tioned, which is an European whale. Of this species, C. macroce-
plialus, the British Museum only possesses one upper jaw,
and three under jaws. In the London College of Surgeons,
there is, according to Gray, the head of a foetus ; and at Paris
there is a nearly perfect skeleton ; — with this last, therefore,
I would more particularly compare our Sydney skeleton,
which has the great advantage of being also perfect, and the
history of which is as follows : —

It was announced in the Sydney Herald of the 5th Decem-
ber, 1849, that the carcass of a sperm whale had been found at
sea and had been towed by the schooner Thistle into the har-
bour of Port Jackson. As the curator of the Australian
Museum, I considered that the skeleton would form a valu-
able addition to our collection ; so with the permission of
the Museum Committee, I lost no time in proceeding to
Neutral Bay, where the schooner then was at anchor, having
a male whale alongside. Mr. Williamson, the master of the
vessel, as soon as he w<is made acquainted with the object of
my visit, offered me most liberally the entire skeleton, with
the exception of the under jaw, which he was desirous of
retaining for the sake of the teeth. On my representing,
however, to him the advantage of our possessing a complete
skeleton, he eventually consented to my taking away the
whole of the bones. The blubber portions of the carcass
had, on account ot the oil, been removed previously to my
arrival on the spot, but as soon as I was in possession of all
that remained I proceeded to adopt proper measures for
cleaning the bones. After considerable difficulty in finding
persons willing to encounter so unpleasant, and as they
imagined, so unhealthy, a task — I at last succeeded in
engaging four Portuguese sailors, who had been some years
employed in the whale fishery. It was, however, then dis-
covered that a portion of the tail, containing ten of the
caudal vertebrse, and also that a fin, were deficient. The tail

had been sent to Sydney with the blubber ; but as I soon
found it on Hughes' Wharf, in Sussex street, I then, by
permission of Colonel Baddeley, of the Royal Engineers,
carried the whole of the bones in my possession to Pinchgut
Island, where, under a course of lime and other preparations, at
the end of two months they were thoroughly bleached and
freed from oil and all offensive odour. As to the lost fin,
every hope of recovering it had been abandoned, when I was
informed by two boys that a strange fish was lying on a rock
near the bath, in A\^ooloomooloo Bay. This, fortunately,
turned out to be the part missing, which, by the way, was
by far the most interesting of the two fins, as it was the right
one, the bones of which are considerably larger than those of
the left, and also more perfect. The fin had been removed
from the whale by the crew of a coasting vessel, while they
were wind-bound in Wooloomooloo Bay. Their object was
to render it down into oil; but a fair wind springing up
before they had time to effect their purpose, they cut it adrift,
when it probably floated to the place where the boys so for-
tunately discovered it.

I state these facts in order to show the obstacles which I
had to encounter before I was enabled to obtain so perfect an
assemblage of the bones. Those finally deficient turned out to
be merely the bones of the pelvis, which were most likely to
escape our notice, from not being articulated to any of the
other bones, but only suspended in the flesh of the belly.
Shortly, however, after the skeleton had been set up, I heard
of another sperm whale having been killed off* the Heads of
Botany Bay, and that it had been washed ashore on the
sandy beach that extends between that Bay and Port Hacking.
I was resolved to complete my collection of the bones, but
experienced considerable difficulty in discovering the carcass
of this last whale, as it was nearly buried in the sand. It
proved to be that of a female, a little larger than the
other. With some danger from the heavy surf which
broke over it I contrived to secure the two pelvic bones of
the right side and also the atlas and axis, with a complete

sternum. Our materials for description became thus so far
complete.

The skeleton of the first of these two whales, which, as said
before, was a male, has been erected on strong iron supports,
and the cartilaginous substance into which the bones of Cetacea
so readily pass, and which occurs so plentifully between the
vertebrae, has been carefully replaced by gutta percha substi-
tutes, after drawings taken carefully by me on the spot where
the carcass was cut up.

The whole length of skeleton as set up is thirty-three feet
six inches, from which if three feet one and a-quarter inches
be subtracted for the length of the intervertebral cartilages,
there will remain a total length of bone in the skeleton of thirty
feet four and three-quarter inches. The whole length of the
head from snout to occiput is nine feet six inches. In the
" Osseme?is Fossiles^^ Cuvier has not given us an exact compa-
rison between the whole length of skeleton and the length of
the head in the sperm whales he examined, because neither of
his skeletons were quite entire. His most perfect skeleton was
the one purchased by him in London, and which must be
considered as typically to belong to the true sperm whale, or
his Physeter macrocephalus. Now all that he says of the
whole length of this is, that it was about fifty-four feet long,
" to which two or three feet more may be added for the inter-
vertebral cartilages." Beale does not state whether the
Yorkshire skeleton is set up with any allowance or substitute
for the size of the intervertebral cartilages, or whether it con •
sists of the bones alone, but he states the extreme length from
snout to tail to be forty-nine feet seven inches. However, I
am inclined to believe that this is the joint length of the bony
vertebree alone, because he states that the animal was
measured shortly after death by Dr. Alderson, and found to
be fifty-eight feet six inches ; and nine feet seems to be too
great a difference between the length of the living animal and
its skeleton, unless we are to make allowance for the length
of the intervertebral cartilages. Assuming this, I offer the
following table as showing the comparative measurements of
those three skeletons.

Length of head.

Total length of

skeleton without

cartilages.

Cuvier's London Skeleton

Feet Inches
16 4

18 0^

9 6

Feet Inches
54 0

49 7

30 4|

Beale's Yorkshire Skeleton

Wall's Sydney Skeleton ...

Thus we see at once that while Cuvier's London skeleton
and the Sydney one come wonderfully close to each other in
the proportions of the head to the whole length ; the York-
shire skeleton having a head so large in proportion to the
length, must belong to a different species. If the forty-nine
feet seven inches include the length of the intervertebral
cartilages, the disparity will be still greater. As it is,
according to the Yorkshire proportions, the Sydney skeleton,
which is thirty feet four and three-quarter inches long, ought
to have a head upwards of eleven feet long. Instead of
which, this skull is only nine and a-half feet long ; so that the
head in our sperm whale is consequently shorter in proportion
to the body than Beale's whale. It is the same in Cuvier's
London whale ; yet the figure of the sperm whale, as given
by Frederic Cuvier, and which appears to be that of the
sperm whale of his brother and of the Northern Atlantic
Ocean, dififers from the figure of the Pacific sperm whale
given by Beale, in having a larger head ; so that the York-
shire skeleton could not possibly have belonged to the same
whale as that of which Beale made a drawing in the Pacific.
It is true that Beale and others consider the difference to
result from a defect in F. Cuvier's figure, but I think reasons
have been now adduced for our believing that the drawings
have been taken from two different species. Of this, indeed,
I shall advance further proof hereafter.

The principal materials which Cuvier possessed for laying
the foundation of all our knowledge of the osteology of the
sperm whale, were the head of an animal cast ashore at

8

Audierne, in France, in 1784, and the almost perfect skeleton
mentioned before as having been purchased by himself in
London, in 1818. Now he has given us a table of the
dimensions of the several parts of the head in these two
specimens. Reducing it to English measure, I shall
make use of this table by placing his observations in parallel
columns to the corresponding dimensions of the Sydney whale.
It will thus be seen that while Cuvier's two whales do not con-
siderably differ among themselves in the relative proportion of
the parts of the head, there is a wide discrepancy in the
proportion which the parts of the head in the Sydney cachalot
bear to each other. It is on viewing such a table that we
regret the want of accurate drawings by which we might
compare the external forms of these three animals in other
ways than by mere measurement of their bones. 1 have, in
the table, also placed some measurements of the head of Sir
Clifford Constable's Yorkshire skeleton, and of a skull of
Gray's Calodoii macrocephalus which is in the British
Museum. They are all the dimensions of these last two which
have as yet been rocorded.

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10

Now the head of Cuvicr's London skeleton was very nearly
a foot longer than that of the Audierne one ; and with the ex-
ception of the width of the occipital foramen in the two
animals, which we find to be rather larger in the Audierne
specimen, we observe the above relation in size to be well kept
up throughout the dimensions of the respective parts of the
head. So well kept up, indeed, as to incline us to adopt
the idea that these two animals of the Paris Museum must
have belonged to the same species. In Cuvier's London
and Audierne skulls, as also in the heads deposited in the
British and Sydney Museums, the whole length of the head is
to the length of the snout always in the same proportion, viz.,
as 18 to 9. Nevertheless, the Sydney skull differs in a very im-
portant point; for while the British Museum upper jaw appears
to belong to the same species as the two Paris skulls, not
only on account of the above proportion, but also on account
of the width of the snout at the ante-orbital notches in all
three being always less than one-third of the whole length,
this width in the Sydney skull is considerably more than one-
third of the whole length. Again, the width of the head
between the orbits in the Yorkshire skeleton, Cuvier's
London, and the Audierne skulls, is always less than one-half
the length of the head. In the Sydney skull it is conside-
rably more. In Cuvier's London, and the Audierne skulls,
the height of the occipital part of the skull is nearly equal to
one-third of the whole length. In the Yorkshire skeleton,
according to Beale, it is considerably less ; and in the Sydney
skull considerably more ; — so that, in general, the Sydney
skeleton is further removed from the Yorkshire skeleton
than from the three others. And if these last three
be considered to belong to one species, viz., the Catodon
macrocephalus of Gray, or Northern Atlantic sperm
whale, we may infer that the Sydney skeleton belongs to
another species of the same genus, which, whether identical
or not with Quoy's Physeter polycyphus, that is, Desmoulins'
P. AustraUs, is certainly nearer in structure to the true
Atlantic sperm than to the Yorkshire skeleton. The Sydney

11

whale is assuredly not the Kogia hremceps of Gray, for this
Cape of Good Hope whale is said to have the beak only as
long as its width at the notches. Neither is the Sydney
whale a species belonging to Gray's genus Physeter ; for this
last has its blow hole opening on the middle of the top of the
head, instead of opening at the upper termination of the
snout, as in true sperm whales.

Beale's Yorkshire skeleton has, as before mentioned, a
skull eighteen feet and half an inch long, Avhile the extreme
width of it was measured by him to be eight fe^t four inches.
Now, according to this proportion, the Sydney skull, nine
feet six inches long, ought to have a breadth of only four feet
four and a-half inches, whereas its actual breadth is five feet
four inches. In other words, in the Sydney animal, the head
is nearly one-fifth its whole width broader than the Yorkshire
cachalot, which at the same time, as was before shown, has
proportionally a longer head. As might have been expected
from the foregoing remarks, the Sydney skeleton has a pro-
portionally shorter under jaw; for comparing the length of
the Yorkshire skull with that of its under jaw, we find that
the Sydney under jaw, ought, in like manner, to be eight feet
ten inches long, whereas, it is only seven feet eight inches.

In all the Catodontidce, or family of sperm whales, there is
an early junction of the two sides of the under jaw ; so that
from the articulating portion of the base of the skull, the two
branches converge in nearly straight lines to a point where
this junction takes place, and then both extend anteriorly, in
the form of a subcylindrical symphysis. This structure is
not common in Cetacea, but may be seen in the Soosoo, or
Dolphin of the Ganges, the genus Platcmista of Cuvier,
who, therefore, ascribes to such fresh water dolphins a certain
affinity with sperm whales. Perhaps, however, this relation
ought more correctly to be termed, an analogy.

In the very learned introduction to Cuvier's Comparative
Anatomy of the Sperm Whale, we find that Sir R. Sibbald, in
1689, described a specimen cast ashore on the coast of Scot-
land, as having forty-two teeth. In 1723, Theodore Hasseus

12

described one caught, latitude seventy-seven degrees north,
as having fifty-two teeth. Anderson, in 1746, described one
with fifty teeth ; and two others afterwards with forty-two
and fifty-one respectively. In 1770, E-obertson described one
cast ashore at Leith, with forty-six teeth. But such early
naturalists were not very accurate observers of specific dis-
tinctions, and it is even supposed that more than one of them
may have taken other Cetacea, particularly the genus Hyperoo-
don, for true CatodontidcB, or sperm whales. However this may
have been, Beale positively describes the Yorkshire sperm
whale as having in the lower jaw forty-eight teeth, twenty-
four on each side. Cuvier does not mention the number he
found in his Audierne specimen, but on examining his figures
we see that a supposed young cachalot, of which the under
iaw is preserved in the Parisian Cabinet d' Anatomic Comparee,
has twenty on each side. Cuvier himself, however, is inclined
to think that this last jaw may have belonged to an adult
animal distinct from the sperm whale, and he says that his
London specimen of true cachalot — his typical Physeter macro-
cephalus — has fifty-four teeth in the under jaw. Our Sydney
specimen has only forty-two teeth, so that although we may,
with the celebrated John Hunter, imagine it very possible
that sperm whales, according to age and other circumstances,
vary in the number of their teeth, we need not preclude our-
selves from supposing that these remarkable difierences may
also in some degree have their origin in the species being
distinct.

The Sydney Museum is in possession of two other
under jaws of Pacific Ocean sperm whales, besides the one
appertaining to the complete skeleton under examination.
One of these is fifteen feet long, and to be in proportion with
our whale, must have belonged to a skeleton sixty feet long,
or more, without the intervertebral cartilages. This under jaw,
as far as its dilapidated state will allow us to ascertain, had
only forty -two teeth, and must, by the following proportions,
have belonged to a species distinct both from Cuvier's London
and from the Yorkshire whales. The other under jaw has

13

also forty-two teeth, and is thirteen feet two inches long. I
subjoin a table of the proportions of these three under jaws
assumed to belong to the same species, that is, Catodon
Australis.

Sydney Ske-
leton.

Under jaw
from Twofold
Bay, pre
sensed by B.
Boyd, Esq

Under j iw

presented by

G. Blaxland,

Esq.

Length of lower jaw in straight line

Length of symphysis

Length of series of dcntary alveoles
Distance between outer edges of the

articular condyles

Height of the mounting branches of the

lower jaw .

Ft. In.

7 8
4 0
4 8

4 5i

1 4

0 9

Ft. In.

13 2

7 11

8 9

6 0
2 3
1 3

Ft. In.

15 0

9 6

10 6

6 5

2 3

1 4

Width of jaw where the symphysis
begins

Number of teeth

42

42

42 or more

According to Mr. Gray, who probably, with Beale, took
John Hunter as his authority for the assertion, not only the
number of teeth varies according to age, but the length of the
lower jaw appears to increase in front, so that in the older
specimens the symphysis is more, and in the younger ones
less than one -half of the entire length of the under jaw. In
our three Sydney under jaws there can be no doubt that the
disproportion between the length of the symphysis and half
length of the entire jaw goes on increasing according to the
size of the animal ; but all three have their symphysis longer
than half the length of the under jaw. It is also certain that
the inspection of the greatest "under jaw in the Sydney
Museum, may induce one to think it possible that, as Mr.
Gray says, the symphysis increases with age in a greater
proportion than the whole length of the lower jaw. By the
way, I may remark, that this largest specimen also appears to
exhibit more than forty-two dentary alveoles or sockets. We
thus have John Hunter's position illustrated, that " the exact

14

number of teeth in any species of sjjerin tchale is uncertain y"
since as the posterior part of the jaw becomes longer with
age, the number of teeth in that part increases, and the
sockets become shallower and shallower, until, in the end,
there is only a slight depression to mark their place.

Cuvier and others have thought that they could discover in
their specimens of the upper jaw, a series of alveoles intended
for the reception of the conical teeth of the under jaw.
Indeed, Dr. Alderson expressly mentions the existence of
such cavities in the upper jaw of Sir C. Constable's whale.
Eeale, however, on his examination of the skeleton of this
very same whale, came afterwards to the conclusion that
there were no indications of sockets in the upper jaw. I
imagine, therefore, that as Dr. Alderson was describing from
the specimen when it was first cast ashore, the cavities of the
upper jaw, into which he says, "the teeth of the lower jaw
fitted when the mouth was closed," must have merely been
cavities in the fleshy lining of the palate. We shall see that
such cavities really exist in a new kind of sperm whale here-
after to be described. I have also carefully examined this
matter in the skeleton now before us ; and, as irregular and
linear cavities may be discovered in the roof of the mouth,
impressed along the roof of each maxillary in a line nearly
parallel to its junction with the inter-maxillary, I have come
to the conclusion that these cavities, although not exactly
corresponding in situation or form to the teeth of the under
jaw, may yet possibly mark the place of the bottoms of those
sockets in the gums, with which all observers of the sperm
whale in a fresh state, say the upper jaw is furnished for the
purpose of receiving the teeth of the under jaw.

The accounts given by old writers, of the voracity and
fierceness of sperm whales, are completely contradicted by
late observers, who have recorded that these vast animals are
timid and inoffensive, as, indeed, might have been imagined
from their having no teeth in the upper jaw. Beale asserts,
and it is a fact in which we may have the greater confidence,
from its having been ascertained by personal observation.

15

that the sperm whale of the Pacific feeds ahnost entirely on
cephalopod mollnsca, or squid ; and, that when near land, it
sometimes, though very rarely, devours small fishes.

Books of Natural History, in general, make the grand
characteristic of sperm whales to consist in the utter defi-
ciency of teeth in the upper jaw.* It may be some excuse
for this common mistake, that we find the deficiency of upper
teeth mentioned by Cuvier in his ^''Hegne Animal^^ as,
perhaps, the most palpable distinction. In truth, however,
scarcely any character of sperm whales can be selected less
peculiar than this, since the want of teeth in the upper jaw
is very common among the dolphins. The ^enex2i Hyper ooclon,
Lacep., ZijyJiius, Cuvier, and DelpJiinorhynclnis , Gray, have
all no teeth in the upper jaw ; and even such typical genera
of DelpJmiidce as Beluga, Gray, Globicephalus, Lesson, and
Grampus, Gray, have them early deciduous. So far, there-
fore, as concerns this character, the cachalots are nothing else
than immense animals of the dolphin family.

At least, there can be little doubt of the Catodontidce or
sperm whales coming nearer to the dolphins, more particularly
to the genus Hyperoodon, in structure, than to the toothless or
true whales, forming Mr. Gray's family Balcenidce, One
great distinction from all other Cetacea of the Catodontidce, is
the vast concavity of the upper surface of their skull. Several
kinds of dolphin have the skull concave, but none have the
hollow of such capaciousness. This hollow, under the floor

* Beale says, that some sperm whales have rudimentary teeth in the
upper jaw ; but if so, such animals must belong to a very diiFerent species
from, our Sydney whale, which has not even the vestige of alveoles. Nor
has the skull of a very young sperm lately discovered on the beach near
Botany. However, it is right to remind those persons who may have it in
their power to investigate the matter, that Mr. F. D. Bennett says, that he
found eight rudimentary teeth on each side of the upper jaw in two instances
of sperm whales, which teeth " are not visible externally in the young
cachalots, but may be seen upon the removal of the soft parts from the
interior of the jaw." Tlie entire length of these teeth was about three
inches ! Now, this story is not to be reconciled with the description of the
upper jaw of the sperm whale given above, and, therefore, I suspect that
Mr. Bennett must have taken some kind of dolphin for a young cachalot.

16

of which the brain is lodged, is formed by an extension of the
maxillaries, which are so developed, as, together with other
bones, to form a semicircular wall, which in the Sydney skele-
ton has less of the horseshoe shape than the head figured by
Cuvier, in his " Ossemens Fossiles.^'

The immense snout of our Sydney whale, like that
of the dolphins, is formed of the vomer on the middle
line, with the intermaxillaries on each side ; and again
having the maxillaries on the outside of all. The
vomer is thicker at the base in the Sydney whale than in
the one figured by Cuvier, and moreover is best distinguished
in the middle line of the roof of the mouth. The extension
of the intermaxillaries beyond the maxillaries forms the
point of the snout. The nostrils are pierced in the middle
of the semicircular cavity mentioned above, at the root of
the vomer, and between the bases of the two intermaxillaries.
The nostril on the right side is scarcely one-fifth of the width
of the left nostril. The direction of both is oblique, and also
their position with reference to the line of the vomer. The
base of each intermaxillary rises with a curvature on each
side of the nostrils, so as to form part of the bottom of that
vast semicircular cavity on the back of the head, where is
the principal deposit of spermaceti. But the intermaxillary
of the right side reaches considerably further back than the
left intermaxillary. Indeed, a want of symmetry in the
Catodontida generally, is singularly conspicuous ; and in our
whale, an organ on one side scarcely ever agrees in size with
its corresponding organ on the other side. The left eye, for
instance, as Cuvier says, is smaller than the right one ; —
indeed, so small, as in Cuvier's specimen, to have almost
escaped his observation. He says, moreover, that fisher-
men are well aware of the advantage they possess in
attacking a sperm whale on its blind side. In like manner,
on my first inspection of the carcass in Neutral Bay, I
could not discover the left eye in our Sydney whale. This
disappearance of the left eye would appear to result
from the extreme development of the left nostril, for

17

the purpose of forming the blow-hole from which the animal
spouts.f

I have before said that at the back of the head or occiput,
there rises a sort of semicircular wall, almost perpendicularly.
This is formed by the right bone of the nose, the base of the

t There is every reason to believe that the Scotch whale, described by Sir
R. Sibbald, with forty-two teeth in the under jaw, was the Black fish, or
Physeter Tursio of Linnaeus, and it is also, perhaps, although I confess I have
great doubts, the species of which Beale saw the skeleton in the possession of
Sir Clifford Constable, in Yorkshire. Unfortunately, I am not able to
refer to Dr. Alderson's paper. According to Sibbald, in the Black
fish, a little above the middle of the rostrum, " there is a lobe which is called
the lune, having two entrances covered with one operculum, called the
Jlap^ Now, from the relation which the position of the nostrils in the skull
bears to that of their single external opening, or Mow-hole, at the front of the
snout in the genus Catodon, we may infer that a blow-hole placed nearer the
middle of the head, as in the Black fish, would not so much distort the
general appearance of the head. And here, by the way, I may observe, that
the words "spiracle" and "blow-hole" appear to be better names than
*'spouter" for that external orifice by which the canal from the nostrils
opens to the atmosphere ; particularly if Beale be correct, who asserts that
these animals never eject water from their nostrils, but only vapour. No
better external characteristic of the true sperm whales, or genus Catodon^
has yet been given than the position of their single blow-hole at the summit
of their snout — the " fistula in rostro" of the old naturalists. It is as good a
character as theu- fat quadrangular snout itself. And were it not that the
Black fish, or genus Physeter, is said to have the blow -hole at the middle of
the snout, as another cetacean of the same family, hereafter to be described,
most certainly has likewise, all the CatodonUd<s, or family of sperm whales,
might thus be neatly separated from dolphins. The genus Catodon agrees
with the herbivorous Cetacea alone, in having the nostrils opening at the
extremity of the snout. It is not the object of the present work to enter
particularly upon the external appearance of sperm whales, or upon the
anatomy of their soft parts. Indeed, as yet, I have had few opportunities of
studying such subjects. I may remark, however, that nothing is certainly
known of the mode in which the single spiracle of the sperm whales
communicates with the two nostrils in the skull. John Hunter would seem
to assert, that there is only a single tube or canal from the commencement, for
both nostrils. In some dolphins, on the other hand, there is said to be a
dividing membranous septum. But all this subject requires further
investigation ; the only thing which appears certain, being, that their single
external spiracle proves the Catodontidce to be rather dolphins than true
whales, which last have two distinct external spiracles, communicating by
separate canals with the holes in the skidl.

18

right intermaxillary, and the base of the two maxillaries
doubled by the occipital. The maxillary forms the anterior
angle of the orbit, in front of which it has a deep emargina-
tion or notch, and close to this notch, on each side of the
head, is a deep hole, which must be considered as answering
to the sub-orbital foramen in other animals ; although, as
Cuvier says, it is in these Cetacea, more correctly speaking,
super-orhital.

The posterior angle of the orbit is occcupied by the point
of the zygomatic apophyse of the temporal ; but this does
not quite join the post-orbital apophyse of the frontal, so that
the orbit is, as it were, open at this place.

The inferior rim of the orbit is formed by a thick and
cylindrical jugal, of which the fore part is dilated into an
oblong plate, which partly closes the orbit in front.

The fossa temporalis is rather deep, of a roundish form,
but not distinguished by any crest from the rest of the oc-
ciput. The zygomatic part of the temporal is shaped like a
thick and short cone. Reaching to the orbit it alone forms
the zygomatic arch, as in the dolphins. The occipital bone is
vertical, and forms all the posterior face of that semicircular
wall which is so singular a characteristic of the back of the
head. The lower edge of this occipital bone is divided on
each side by a notch into two lobes, of which the external one
represents the mastoid apophyse.

OF THE OS HYOIDES.

When the intestines and other soft portions of the animal
were about to be towed to sea, and cast adrift, I desired the
men carefully to explore the masses of flesh ; the result was
fortunate, for they had not made use of their spades many
minutes before they struck against some hard substances in
one mass, which, on examination proved to be the parts of
the OS hyoides. This organ, in cetaceous animals, is generally

19

composed of three bones — two lateral, which are the styloi-
deans ; and a central one, which is the true os hyoideSf and
which is often separable into three. The styloideans, or
styloid processes, are attached by a cartilage to that lobe of
the occipital which represents the mastoid process. The
OS hyoides itself has somewhat of a crescent form, having at
the convex and anterior part two apophyses by which it is
suspended by cartilages to the styloideans. On each side,
more particularly in young specimens, the two horns of the
crescent are separated by a suture from the centre piece. In
our Sydney whale, which is comparatively a young specimen,
the central bone of the os hyoides is heart-shaped, with the
point of the heart notched, so as to give off the two short
apophyses to which the styloideans are attached by cartilage.
It is also keeled in the middle behind, and concave within.
On each side we see a flat oval bone, joined by a suture
to this middle bone. In some Cetacea, these bones, which
form the horns of the crescent, are said always to remain in
the state of cartilage. The styloideans, in our whale, are in-
sulated slender prismatic bones, somewhat rounded at the
points. Cuvier has figured an os hyoides (O.F. pi. 226. fig.
15,) very like to the one just described, and which he sup-
poses to have belonged to the Audierne Cachalot. The
dimensions of the os hyoides, in our specimen, are as
follows : —

Middle length of middle piece . . . .

Greatest breadth of ditto

Breadth of ditto between the horns
Length of a horn of the crescent . .

Greatest breadth of ditto

Length of a styloidean ,

Greatest diameter of ditto

Feet.
0

Inches
11

I

5

0

11

1

4

0

8

1

7

1

0

20

OF THE EAR.

Camper has figured tlie bone of the ear in the Northern
Sperm Whale, but I have not been able to refer to his figure,
and to compare it with the ear of our animal. Cuvier never
saw this bone of the sperm whale. In the Sydney specimen,
the external aperture of the meatus auditorius is so small as
only to admit of the entrance of a small quill. We may
suppose that the sense of hearing need not be very acute, if
Beale be right in contradicting the assertions of the old
writers on this subject, and denying to these animals the power
of making '^any nasal or vocal sound whatever." Never-
theless, the general opinion of whalers seems to be that the
Cetacea hear w ell, both in water and the open air ; and com-
parative anatomists, such as Professor E-ymer Jones, imagine
that, while aquatic sounds are received into the ear under
water by the external meatus, which, as above mentioned, is
reduced here to the smallest possible diameter — atmospheric
sounds, on the contrary, are perceived by the whale when his
snout is out of the water, by means of the blow hole, which
always communicates with the ear by a very wide Eustachian
tube. One of the well known characteristics of Cetacea as an
order, is to have the petrous portion of the temporal bone,
wherein is lodged the organ of hearing, more or less distinct
from the rest of the skull. In our whale the small bones of
the ear are consolidated into one irregular stony mass, which
is suspended by ligaments in a cavity formed between the
temporal, occipital, basilar, and sphenoid bones. It is an ear
diiferent from that of herbivorous Cetacea, and also from that
of true whales ; but, as Cuvier judged from Camper's figure,
remarkably close in its structure to that of the dolphin
family. It may be divided into two parts, the drum and the
labyrinth, which are separated from each other behind by a
very deep longitudinal hole. The labyrinth is a stony mass,
which may be divided into two portions, — 1st, the larger one
comprising the so-called semi-circular canals ; and 2nd, the

hemispherical smaller one, which is separated from the larger
portion nearly as distinctly as in dolphins, and contains the
cochlea. Three of the four deep holes which separate these
two portions of the labyrinth, are pierced at the bottom of
the trefoil-shaped large one. They serve for the admission
of nerves. The tympanum or drum is formed by a thick
bony shell, curved inwards longitudinally, so as to resemble
the whorl of an univalve mollusc; and to form thus a wide canal
where the Eustachian tube takes its origin. Behind, this
canal is closed, and assumes a somewhat bilobed form at the
place where it becomes confluent with the posterior part of
the labyrinth, by means of a rugose bony apophyse, to which
the suspending cartilage is attached.

OF THE SPINAL COLUMN.

The spinal column in our specimen consists altogether of
forty-four vertebrae, i. e., if we consider the cervical verte-
brae to be only two. But these in fact are seven, the first or
atlas being free, and the other six* much compressed, being
anchylosed together, as is manifested by their distinct ridges,
which Cuvier long since pointed out in his London
Skeleton, Oss. Foss. pi. SS, fig. 13.

The dorsal vertebrae, or those to which the ribs are
attached, are ten in number, having the vertical spinous
processes inclined backwards, and increasing in length from
the first to the last. They have also short transverse pro-

♦ In tlie genus Hyperoodo7i and most of tlie Delphinid^ all the seven cervical
vertebrae are soldered together, which occurs likewise in the true whales. But
in the bottlenosed dolphin, as well as the dolphin of the Ganges, (Platanista
Gangetica of Cuvier), it is stated by Cuvier that all the cervical vertebrae are
free ! "What is singular is, that in the Korquals, at least in the Cape Rorqual,
the only cervical vertebrae soldered together are the axis and its following
one ; all the rest being quite free. In the order of Cetacea it is to be observed
that the cervical vertebrae vary much in structure. For instance, Daubenton
and Cuvier both state that the manati has only six such vertebrae.

22

cesses on each side, and the spmous process has an anterior
articular, which being bifid, serves for locking one
vertebra into the other, by receiving the inclined edge
of the vertical apophyse of the preceding vertebra into its
bifurcation.

The next eight or lumbar vertebrae, have their spinous
processes wider at the summit than at the base. These are
also more oblique and elongated than in the dorsal vertebrae,
and their articulars rise gradually on their front edge, as in
the dolphin tribe. These spinous apophyses at first increase
to the centre of the lumbar vertebrae, and then begin to
decrease in size.

The transverse apophyses of the vertebrse are at first
merely simple tubercles of the articular processes, and they
do not assume the form of distinct apophyses until the three
or four last dorsal vertebrse. They then increase in size,
until the two or three last lumbars, when they continue
diminishing to the tail.

The under side of all the vertebrae after the fourth lumbar
is strongly carinated.

The caudal vertebrae are twenty-four in number, and may
be divided into two sets. The first thirteen have upright
spinous processes, gradually diminishing in size, and disap-
pearing with the lateral transverse apophyses. These thirteen
vertebrse have attached to them twelve long inferior bifid
processes,* called V bones, each nearly perpendicular to the
vertebral axis, and articulated, or at least, connected by strong
cartilage with the bodies of two consecutive vertebrae. The
third of these V bones is the longest, being one foot four inches
long ; but the first and last are only four inches each. While the
fore part of the spine, is as above described, made strong by
having the consecutive dorsal vertebrae locked into each other,
so that the hinder part of the vertical apophyse of one is received,

* The first of these V bones is truly bifid in our Botany whale, and the arms
are of unequal length, but in the Sydney whale this V bone is not bifid, but
only a subconical process. Is this a difference of sex or of species ? Or, are
our two animals varieties of one species ?

23

as it were, into the anterior bifurcation of the same apophyse
in the following vertebra ; the root of the tail, which requires
more flexibility and power of motion from side to side, has
equal strength given to it by the manner in which every two
consecutive vertebrae of the first thirteen caudals are bound
by tough cartilage to the twelve connecting V bones.* The
twenty-seventh and three following vertebrae have their trans-
verse apophyses perforated at the sides for the passage of
tendons which appear to have the same object of uniting
strength with perfect mobility of this part of the spine.

The last eleven of the caudal vertebrae are without pro-
cesses of any kind, and rapidly diminish in size down to the ter-
minal bone of tail, which is nearly globular, and scarcely one
inch in diameter.

Now taking the two most perfect sperm skeletons hitherto
described, namely, Cuvier's London, and Beale's Yorkshire,
we find that the last has forty-four vertebrae, like our Sydney
specimen ; but that the first has fifty -five vertebrae, account-
ing the six last cervical vertebrae to be anchylosed into one.
The following table will show the differences more clearly.

Cervical Yer-
tebrai as an-
chylosed.

OorsalVerte-
brae ; er such
as have a pair
ofribsarticu
lated to each.

Lumbar, or
such verte-
bras as inter-
vene between
dorsal and
first having a
V Vone.

Caudal.

Total.

Wall's Sydney...
Beale's Yorkshire
Cuvier's London.

2
2
2

10
10
14

8

8?
20?

24
24?
19?

44
44
55

If Cuvier's London skeleton really has the number of ver-
tebrae he assigns to it,t the animal must have been thoroughly

* Beale's Yorkshire skeleton has, according to him, only ten V bones,
another proof of the species being distinct. Besides, the second Vbone is the
longest in his whale, whereas the third in our specimen is much the longest.

t There is no doubt that the number of vertebrae in different species of
Cetacea varies much. liight whales and Rorquals generally have more than
fifty, and in fact forty-four is upon the whole a small number of vertebrae
for a cetacean animal.

distinct, not inerely from the Yorkshire whale, but from our
Sydney whale also ; which last, however, in this respect
agrees remarkably with the one described by Beale, so far at
least as we can make out from that author's description. In
all three whales I believe the foramen for the passage of
the spinal cord to be widest as it passes through the atlas
and other cervical vertebrae, from which it tapers away
until it terminates about the commencement of the caudal
vertebrae.

TABLE

SHOWING THE LENGTH AND CIRCUMFEllENCE OF EACH VERTEBllA IN THE
SPINAL COLUMN OF THE SYDNEY SPEini WHALE.

No.

Name.

Length.

Circum-
ference.

No.

Name.

Length.

Circum-
ference.

In.

Ft.

lu.

In.

Ft. In.

1

Atlas

3

5

11

22

Caudal 2nd

2

Axis (which is
called dentata
in man) and

23

having inferior
processes
3rd

9

5 7
5 G

five others an-

24

4th

9

5 0

chylosed into

25

5th

9

4 9

one.

7|

5

8

2G

6th

9

4 4

3

Dorsal 1st

3

4

9

27

7th

'-'4:

3 10

4

2nd

41

4

9

28

8th

^

3 0,1

5

3rd

4i

4

8

29

9Lh

8

3 1

6

4th

4|

4

6

30

10th

7k

2 10

7

5th

5

4

7

31

11th

6k

2 8

8

6th

5h

4

7

32

12th

5l

2 6

9

7th

6

4

8

33

13th

4

2 2

10

8 th

G\

4

8

34

Caudal 1st with-

11

9 th

^

4

9

out any infe-

12

10th

6-1

5

4

rior process

32^

1 10

13

Lumbar 1st

7

6

0

35

2nd

H

1 H

14

2nd

7t;

6

1

36

3rd

n

1 7i

15

3rd

n

6

3

37

4th

2

1 5i

16

4th

8

6

5

38

5th

2

1 4

17

5th

8|

6

3^

39

6th

2

1 1^

18

6th

8^

6

H

40

7th

If

0 11

19

7th

4

6

1

41

8th

1*

0 10

20

8th

9

5

11|

42

9 th

H

0 7|-

21

Caudal 1st,

43

10th

1

0 5^

having inferior

44

11th

o|

0 3^

processes

H

5

8

25

TABLE

OF DIMENSIONS OF THE V BONES IN SYDNEY SPERM WHALE.

No.

Length.

Width at top.

Breadth at widest part.

Ft. la.

Inches.

Inches.

1

0 4

4

4

2

0 llj

4

2|

3

1 4

4J

5^

4

1 H

6

7-1

5

1 2

H

6i

6

1 0|

6

7

7

0 11*

6^

6

8

0 9|

6}

6

9

0 8

6

7

10

0 6i

5b

6|

11

0 5

4i

5

12

1

0 4

4

3^

OF THE RIBS.

The somewhat cuxular chest, on account of the disappearance
of the neck, appears close to the posterior part of the head. The
first, ninth, and tenth pairs of ribs have only one articulating
surface to their proper vertebrae, but the second, third, and
fourth, have two articulating surfaces, and the fifth, sixth,
seventh, and eighth, have three. The ribs on the left
side are of larger dimensions than the corresponding ones on
the right, as the following table will show.

TABLE

OF THE DIMENSIONS

OF THE RIBS.

No.

X

2
3
4
5

6

7

8

9

10

Length of ribs on right side.

Length of i ibs on

left side.

Ft. In.
4 2

Ft.
4

In,

3^
9

2^

4

2

lU
6

10

3i

6

1

0 7

.,. . 5

6 2

.... 6

6 3

6 H

6

. .. 6

,5 10

5

5 4

.... 5
4

4 10

Floating Rib . . , ...... 4 3

Ditto 3 5^

Floating Rib

Ditto

.... 4
3

26

OF THE STERNUM.

One of the more remarkable parts of the comparative ana-
tomy of our Sydney spechnen is the structure of the sternum.
To understand this structure, it may be useful to bear in mind a
remark of Geoffrey de St. Hilaire,that the bones of symmetrical
animals are always in pairs, one ranged on each side of a
theoretical spinal axis or medial line ; so that a central, or what
appears in nature to be an odd bone, such as a vertebra or a
bone of sternum, must be considered theoretically as com-
posed of two bones ossified together at their symphysis.
Now, on referring to the Delphinidce, which are perhaps of
all Cetacea the nearest to the CatGdontidce, or sperm whales, we
find (see Cuvier Oss. Foss. pi. 244, fig. 21) that Belphinus
Tursio, or bottle -nosed dolphin, the sternum of which con-
sists of three bones, has this binary structure marked out in
the anterior bone, which is distinguished by a hole in the
centre of the ossified symphysis,* and in the third bone by the
trace of a central suture. In our Sydney sperm whale, the
anterior bone must be described as two distinct sub-triangular
ones joined by a cartilage in the middle ; each with a wide
head in front, and a deep emargination in the middle.
These corresponding emargination s answer to the hole in the
middle of the anterior sternum bone of Belphinus Tursio,
which, as before said, has the two bones consolidated into one.
So also Beale describes the anterior piece of the sternum in
his sperm whale to be " perforated in the middle by an ob-
long opening." Unfortunately, M. Cuvier does not seem to
have ever seen any part of the sternum of the Cachalot.
He says, however, that the bottle-nosed dolphin has three
bones in the sternum, of which the second is simply rectan-
gular, receiving the articulation of the second pair of ribs

* It woidd appear according to Cuvier, that the true whales or genus
BalcBJia, have not got this perforation in the solid anterior piece of their
sternum; so that we have here another proof of sperm whales being nearer to
dolphins than to true whales in their structure.

^7

where it joins the anterior bone before described. In our
Sydney whale this second piece of the sternum is composed
of two distinct triangular bones joined together by cartilage;
and which, if consolidated into one, would make an equila-
teral triangle, having its point directed towards the tail of the
animal. These bones, in the Yorkshire whale, are consolidated
into one flat irregular piece, and Beale describes a third piece
which expands very much, and also a small ensiform portion.
This last alone would show his animal to be a distinct form of
sperm whale. The bottle-nosed dolphin has also a third
bone, but Cuvier makes no mention of its having any " ensi-
form portion."

I have been fortunate in getting possession of the sternum
of the other sperm whale thrown ashore in Botany, as it
has led me to understand the structure of this part in
such animals, as compared with the same in dolphins. Our
two sperm whales may be said to have their sternum com-
posed of six bones, three on each side of a cartilaginous
medial symphysis. The first two form by their junction that
anterior bone of the dolphins, so remarkable in some species
for its medial perforation. But in the Botany sperm whale,
each of these first two is ossified with the following two, which,
when joined by cartilage, answer to the second bone of the
sternum in Delphinus Tursio. The third two bones of the
cachalots answer to the third bone of dolphins, but in our
Sydney sperm whale these last are ossified with the fore-
going two ; so that we may say, that of the three bones on
either side of the sternum, the Sydney whale has the two
last anchylosed together, and the Botany whale the two first
bones. Besides, the termination of the sternum is widely
different in these two individuals. In our Sydney skeleton
the two last bones converge to a point, whereas in the Botany
specimen they diverge from each other with truncated
summits, thinned off towards their inner edge. Does the
sternum in the same species vary in this manner ? Is it a
sexual distinction ? — or am I describing two different spe-
cies ? Unfortunately, the Botany sperm whale was in such a

^8

state of decomposition when I saw it, and besides had been
so much cut up, that I must confess it to be out of my power
to determine these points. And I trust this uncertainty will
be borne in mind when I come to describe the pelvis of the
Botany sperm whale, which I have reasons for believing to
have been a female.

In our Sydney whale, the sternal parts of its ribs are all
cartilaginous, whereas in the true dolphins they are generally
ossified. As I made my drawings of this singular sternum on
the spot before the animal was divided, I have no doubt of
the accuracy of the manner in which I have placed these
bones in the skeleton ; which, besides, is proved by the loca-
tion of the bones in the Botany Bay sternum. Their dimen-
sions are as follow in the Sydney specimen : —

Length, of sternum

Greatest breadth of ditto

Length of anterior bones

Greatest breadth of each of ditto
Least breadth of each of ditto . . . .

Length of posterior bones

Greatest breadth of each, of ditto
Breadth of each of ditto at point

Feet

Inches

3

0

3

0

1

8

1

6

0

10

1

4

0

H

0

21

OF THE FINS, OR FOEEPA.WS.

I need scarcely state to zoologists that cetaceous animals
have no clavicles. The scapula of the sperm whale forms a
flat sub-triangular piece, having the blunt apex downwards
and concave, while the base of this triangle is convex. The
anterior margin goes oif into a keel, offering at its external
termination a flat triangular and blunt-headed process, repre-
senting the acromion ; while the other margin lying close to
the ribs, and where the scapula articulates with the humerus,
projects forward in the form of a more styliform and pointed

29

process, which no doubt is the coracoid. The great size and
the form of the acromion process agrees better with the struc-
ture of true whales J than with that of dolphins.* The fol-
lowing are the dimensions of the right scapula : —

Lengtli from upper part to glenoid cavity
Breadth of upper part

„ narrowest part

,, lowest part

Lengtli of acromion process

Breadth of ditto ,

Length of coracoid process

Breadth of ditto

Length of glenoid cavity ,

Breadth of ditto

Feet

Inches

2

3i

I

10

0

11

0

8^

0

11

0

H

0

6^

0

3

0

8

0

5h

With respect to the very short thick humerus, it is very
nearly half the length of the scapula, and consequently in
proportion to the scapula not so long as in the Yorkshire
whale. On the opposite side to the head of the animal, there
is a short and thick apophyse, so that the external side of the
humerus presents a strong notch or emargination. This hu-
merus expands very much at its carpal end, where it articulates
with the radius and ulna. Beale says that in the Yorkshire
whale the radius and ulna were ossified to the humerus. The
following are the dimensions of the humerus in our Sydney
specimen : —

Whole length of humerus .

Breadth of head

Breadth of narrowest part .

Circumference of ditto

Breadth of extremity

Feet

Inches

1

2

0

n

0

5

1

2

0

8^

* On comparing the figure of the scapula of our Sydney whale with that
given by Cuvier of his London whale, a great difierence may be discovered
in the general form, and particularly in that of the acromion.

30

With respect to the radius and ulna, they are both con-
stricted in the middle, and of much the same form, except
that the globular olecranian process of the latter gives a
peculiar character to this last, by its being very prominent
as it turns towards the thumb. The following are their
dimensions : —

Length of ulna

Breadth of upper part of ditto, including the olecranon,

which projects so as to form a hook ,

Circumference of narrowest part of ditto

Breadth of lower part of ditto

Length of radius

Breadth of head of ditto

Circumference of narrowest part of ditto . ,

Breadth of lower part of ditto

Inches

10

7

H
11

6J

The bones of the carpus are not articulated together, as in
the more perfect mammals, but are imbedded in a mass of
that cartilaginous substance which so often, in Cetacea, repre-
sents bony matter. This flat mass of cartilage, which takes
the place of the wrist, is one foot two inches in width, and
extends five inches from the radius and ulna to the metacarpal
bones.

The carpal bones are six in number. Five of them are of
rounded irregular shape, and are placed in a transverse row,
one opposite to each finger. The sixth is a thin linear flat
transverse bone, placed close to the radius, between it and the
carpal bone of the thumb ; so that the thumb may be con-
sidered as having two carpal bones. The largest carpal bone
is about two inches in diameter. There is considerable dis-
crepancy here between the description of Beale and mine as
just given ; but the true placing of the carpal and metacarpal
bones, rudimentary as they are in Cetacea, and separately im-
bedded in cartilage, is a subject of considerable difliculty, unless

31

drawings of them have been made in situ. My drawing of
these bones was made on the spot, before they were separated
from the cartilage in which they were imbedded. If Beale be
right, his whale has seven square carpal bones, but it is possible
that by mistake he has included the first metacarpal bone of
the thumb, among the carpal bones. Cuvier never saw either
the carpal or metacarpal bones, or the phalanges of his speci-
mens of sperm whales. The dimensions of our carpal bones
are as follows : —

First carpal bone of thumb,
Ditto ditto,

Second carpal bone of thumb,
Ditto ditto,

Carpal bone of fore finger,
Ditto ditto,

Carpal bone of middle finger,
Ditto ditto.

Carpal bone of fourth finger,
Ditto ditto.

Carpal bone of little finger.
Ditto ditto.

Inches

length

2|

breadth

length

n

breadth

If

length

breadth ....,.,.

2
21

length •(

breadth

2

2

length

breadth ,

length

breadth '.

n

The metacarpal bones, which are much compressed, and
scarcely to be distinguished from the phalangeal, are in num-
ber, five being to all appearance the first joints of their
several digits. That of the thumb is more dilated at the
carpal end ; while the largest is that of the middle finger, and
measures four inches in length, and three in breadth, — but I
give the following as their general dimensions : —

32

Metacarpal bone of thumb —Length

„ Breadth at base
Ditto of fore finger— Length

„ Breadth at base .
Do. of middle finger— Length

,, Breadth at base
Do. of fourth finger ~ Length

,, Breadth at base .
Do. of little finger— Length

„ Breadth at base .

Inches

1^

1|
0.3

2^
^s

4

2|

3j

2|

2

The phalanges gradually diminish towards the points of
the fingers :

The thumb containing 2 bones, and a third phalanx of cartilage

The index finger .... 5 bones

The middle finger ... 5 bones

The fourth finger .... 3 and a fourth phalanx of cartilage

The little finger 3 bones

OF THE PELVIS.

The pelvis, as I mentioned before, was not recovered from
the whale of which the skeleton is set up. It is a skeleton,
however, entire, except in this respect. I obtained after-
wards from the other carcass on the open beach at Botany,
although it was in an advanced state of decomposition, the
greater part of those soft parts, in which, while the animal
was alive, the pelvic bones were suspended. Unfortunately,
one-half nearly had been carried away by the heavy seas
which dashed on the beach, although enough remained in two
bones of one side, to prove that the rudimentary pelvis of the
sperm whale of the Pacific Ocean is of much the same con-
struction as that of the right whale of the Southern Ocean,
which, with that of the Cape Rorqual, was examined at the
Cape of Good Hope for M. Cuvier, by M. de la Lande, as
mentioned in the Oss. Foss., vol. ix., p. 302.

33

The situation of the bones of the pelvis, which are the only-
vestiges of the hinder legs of ordinary mammals, marks the
place in the spinal column, from which these extremities, if
they had existed, would have been suspended. The deve-
lopment of the V bones in Cetacea probably takes its origin
in the total abortion of the ordinary hinder extremities of
other Mammalia.

The pelvis in the sperm whale is not in immediate junc-
tion with the spine, but suspended in the flesh at some
distance from it. The antepenultimate of the lumbar
vertebrae in our Sydney skeleton bears towards its extremity
an impression which probably serves for the attachment of
the strong muscles that support the bones of the pelvis.
In the true whale of the Southern Ocean (Balcena Aus-
tralisj, the pelvis is composed of three pieces, a middle
and two more slender ones, which are articulated, one on
each side of the former. So also it appears to be with
the sperm whale, except that what answers to the middle
bone of the true whale appears here to be composed of
two arched bones. Thus, in reality, there are four bones,
two on each side of the sperm whale, and they lie in the
form of a crescent, of which the convex part is directed
forward. These bones are situated in front of the anus,
but are probably not joined together by any true articula-
tion.

In Beale's Yorkshire whale, he describes a pelvis which is
of a very different structure from this. There, he says, the ani-
mal had two broad, flat, irregular and quadrilateral bones,
ossified at their symphysis — a structure which approaches more
to the pelvis of the Cape Rorqual ( Meg apt era Poeskop of
Gray).

The largest of these pelvic bones in our Botany whale, is
curved somewhat like a rib, convex on one side, concave on
the other, broader at one extremity and at the other hooked,
back towards the convex side. The smaller bone, which perhaps
answers to the os ilium in more perfect mammals, is sub-
cylindrical, somewhat curved and thicker at the base than at

D

34

the extremity * It is not unlike the corresponding bone in
the pelvis of the Southern true whale, but is comparatively-
shorter and less slender. The dimensions of the bones are as
follow : —

1st Bone Length.

Breadth at base . . .

Ditto at middle . . .

Ditto at poijit

Thickness at middle

Thickness at hook .
2nd Bone— Length

Greatest breadth . .

Still the subject of the pelvis in the genus Catodonohyiously
requires further elucidation by means of more perfect speci-
mens. And here, I may remark, that it would be of great
service to the promotion of natural science if the officers of
whaling vessels, and persons having opportunities along the
coast of Australia, would forward to our Museum specimens
of the Cetacea of the Pacific Ocean, or their bones. It is in-
deed rather discreditable that our Colonial collection should
not be in possession of any specimen of the common porpoise
of Port Jackson (if it be a porpoise), or of the dugong of
our north-eastern shores. The last deficiency is the more
tantalizing, as although there is said to be a considerable fish-
ery of dugongs so near to us as Moreton Bay, naturalists are
still ignorant whether the Australian species be the same with
the dugong of Java and Sumatra.

We have now finished our survey of the bony structure

of the sperm whale of our Australian coast, and I think it has

been quite sufficient to enable us to decide that this species is

♦neither the same as Beale's Yorkshire whale nor yet as Cuvier's

* In page 88 of Beale, he mentions a bone of his Yorkshire whale, which,
from its shape, I should imagine to be the same as this, but it is seven times
the length, and he assigns to it a quite different use.

35

London whale : consequently that it is not the Catodon macro-
cephalusoi Gray, that is, the common sperm whale of the Euro-
pean seas. Whether it be the same species as the Physeter
Australis of Desmoulins — an apocryphal species, founded, as
we have seen, on a sketch made by the master of an English
whaler — may admit of doubt ; since no description, properly
so called, as yet exists of this last named species. I am inclined,
indeed, to believe that more than one species of sperm whale
will hereafter be shown to live in these Southern Seas. Still,
as the epithet " Australis" is as applicable to our specimen as
to any other of the genus, it has been judged proper to name
it Catodon Australis, and I trust sufficient characters have
been assigned by which this species may hereafter be
distinguished from all others.

The skeleton set up appears to excite considerable interest
among the curious of Sydney; and it is to be hoped that the
foregoing observations will not merely serve to explain the
osseous framework of a sperm whale, but also show the
visitors of our Museum that the inspection of these dry bones
ought to suggest to them reflections far more instructive than
the vulgar admiration of their prodigious size. According to
Beale, specimens are to be seen in the Pacific more than three
times the size of this individual ; and nevertheless, Madame
de Stael's observation ought ever to be borne in mind : ^' Le
plus foible atome est un monde et le monde peutetre n^est qu^un
atomey Thus, the practised observer of nature knows that
the smallest organisation may offer as complex a subject for
curious study as the largest ; and that an interest may attach
itself to the sperm whale quite distinct from that due to its
enormous dimensions, or even to its great use in human
economy. We may, for instance, without being very profound
naturalists, admire its truly mammal structure, disguised
under the mask of a fish ; its want of that symmetry which is
so general in other vertebrated animals ; its cup-like receptacle
for the spermaceti which is to obviate in the ocean the
enormous weight of such a mass of skull ; its vertebrae locked
into each other in two diflferent ways, both however adapted

S6

to combine the greatest strength with the power of effecting
the object to which any part of the spinal column may be
specially destined. We may, likewise, study the delicate
mechanism of the paddles, and the manner in which the
hinder legs, so necessary to the other orders of Mammalia,
here disappear ; or we may compare the small and simple
bones that terminate the tail, with the accounts which whalers
give us of their stoutest boats being dashed to pieces by the
powerful cartilaginous flukes of which these weak bones form
the axis. But it is almost impossible to detail the various
subjects for meditation, which the inspection of such a skeleton
may suggest to the minds of our visitors ; and I shall, there-
fore, proceed to the description of another cetacean animal of
the sperm whale family, which presents, as I believe, a form
new to naturalists.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE EUPHYSETES GRAYII.

The enquiries for bones, which in my search for the pelvis of
the sperm whale, I lately instituted along the coast in the
immediate neighbourhood of Sydney, have excited such
interest among settlers near the sea that I trust our Australian
Museum is at length in possession of the nucleus of what
hereafter will become a classical collection of the remains of
cetaceous mammals. Such remains form the rarest specimens
to be seen in European collections ; and our immediate proxi-
mity to the Pacific Ocean affords to Sydney peculiar advantages
for assembling materials, upon which a thorough investigation
of this obscure department of zoology may be founded. One
advantage already secured by my enquiries has been the
discovery of a new animal, about nine or ten feet long, and
the lodging an almost perfect skeleton of it in our Museum.

Mr. Brown, a gentleman residing in the neighbourhood of
Botany, who had kindly assisted me in my search for the
second sperm whale, sent me word in the month of September
last that a young one had been thrown ashore at Maroobrah
Beach, halfway between Coojee and Botany. To this place
I immediately proceeded, and found half buried in the sand
the remains of a cetacean that appeared to have been dead
about six weeks. The rumour since has been that such an
animal was about that time seen within the Heads of Port
Jackson, and, being taken for a young sperm, was repeatedly
fired at. Whether this was our animal, or such the cause of
its death, cannot now be ascertained. The carcass, when I
discovered it, had been so much devoured by native dogs and
other animals of prey that no part remained of the external
integuments except the flukes of the tail, tlie dorsal fin, the

38

thumb extremity of the right pectoral fin, the fore part of the
top of the head, with the gums, and part of the under jaw with
the teeth and lip attached. These parts are all much torn,
but such as they were found they are preserved in the
Museum, and they will serve to give us some idea of the
external appearance of the animal.

Though a whale of the sperm family, with a short and very
broad head, it was in appearance a dolphin, about nine feet
long. Like a dolphin, it had a low snout, and rising from it
a convex forehead, at the base of which was the large single
blow hole placed at about the middle of the head.* The
snout was turned up with a margin somewhat like that of a pig.
In the gums of the roof of the mouth there was on each side a
series of sockets for receiving the teeth of the under jaw ; these
teeth were hollow, conical, and inserted somewhat horizon-
tally in the sides of a very thin, narrow, sub-cylindrical under
jaw. They were slightly curved upwards, so that their points
should enter into the abovementioned alveoles of the upper
jaw. The eye was situated low, in front of a very weak
pectoral fin. There was a triangular dorsal fin like that of a
dolphin, the rather convex front edge of it being inclined
backwards at an angle of about 45 ° . The hinder edge of it was
more perpendicular and concave. The perpendicular height
of the point of this dorsal fin from the back was about 3 J inches,
and its base 6 inches wide. The caudal fin was triangular,
with the terminating edge sinuated from each sharp point to
the middle, where there was an emargination small but deep.
Its breadth at the terminating edge in a straight line was two
feet, and the length from the medial emargination that divided
the flukes to the neck of the tail was about one foot. Such is
all that I can say on the subject of the outward aspect, but the
manner in which the points of the teeth are worn show this
whale to have been a full-grown animal.

By repeated visits to Maroobrah Beach, by diligent search,

* As far as I can judge, this aperture appears to have been somewhat of a
circular form, or it may have been lunate, with the horns of the lune directed
forwards towards the point of the snout.

39

by sifting the sand, and offeringpremiums to residents near the
spot for the recovery of the smaller bones, 1 have been able
to collect an almost perfect skeleton. Indeed, it may be said
to be complete, with the exception of the sternum, some
phalanges of the digits of left paddle and one side, of which
we are deficient in many of the ribs.

The skeleton, without the invertebral cartilages, is about
eight and a-quarter feet long, while the skull from extremity
of snout to the hinder edge of the occipital condyles, is sixteen
and a half inches long. The great principle on which this
skull has been constructed, is the same which prevails in the
more enormous sperm whale described in the preceding
chapter. There is the same want of symmetry, the same
distortion of the component bones, the same concavity of the
upper surface of the head, formed by the enormous develop-
ment of the base of the maxillaries, and finally, the same
convexity of the roof of the mouth. Here, moreover, we
have some anomalies that render the formation more diver-
gent from that of dolphins, than even is that of the skull of a
true sperm. For instance, owing to the great breadth of the
vomer, we have a snout forming from the notches almost an
equilateral triangle, but with its apex blunt and emarginate ;
the point of the snout is thus short, truncated, and emarginate,
instead of being long and sharp as in the true sperm. Here,
also, the inter maxillaries barely pass beyond the point of the
maxillaries ; although, as in the true sperm whale, the right in-
ter maxillary mounts nearly to the occipital, high above the right
nostril, which is, as it were, almost carved out of it. A great
distinction is here perceived from the structure of the genus
Catodon, for instead of a perpendicular and semicircular wall,
formed by the maxillaries and doubled by the occipital, form-
ing the back of the great cavity on the summit of the head,
we see this cavity, although it is completely formed at the
back by the maxillaries, divided as it were into two unequal
parts by a ridge of bone which is twisted towards the left side
of the head. This prominent, thick, and sinuated ridge,
which in the middle of the forehead separates the two unequal

40

cavities, is formed by the base of the left maxillary and the
base of the right intermaxillary, which both meet at the
summit of the head. The right intermaxillary, however,
does not join the occipital, but is separated from it by a thin
edge of the right maxillary, so that the occipital is doubled
in front by the base of the maxillaries alone ; in this way the
left intermaxillary is much shorter than the right one, and
mounts no higher than the wall of the left nostril, which it
partly forms. It is the enormous width given to this left
nostril that thus distorts the bones. The vomer forms with the
sides of the intermaxillaries a broad hollow canal, in the
middle of which it tapers away to a point which divides that
intermaxillary emargination which terminates the broad snout.

The nostrils are pierced in the middle of the upper surface
of the head, not, perhaps, so obliquely as in the genus
Catodon ; but they are here much more unequal in size, one
being more than ten times the size of the other. The nasal
bones are in this manner thrown completely out of their
place. The right one is a very small triangle, at the base of
the ethmoidal, which forms, with the right intermaxillary,
the wall of the small right nostril. It also forms the lower
edge of the dividing ridge, and terminates abruptly and
perpendicularly above the base of the vomer. The left nasal
bone is more than two inches long, and somewhat of a
parallelogram in shape. With the left intermaxillary, the
left maxillary and the ethmoid together, it forms the wall of
the enormous left nostril.

In this animal, as we have said, the two massive maxil-
laries touch each other behind where they are doubled by the
occipital, and leave no part of the frontal visible. A notion
of their heavy proportions may be obtained from the fact, that
a section of the right maxillary, taken through the right
nostril, perpendicular to the medial line of the head, would
be a triangle, having four inches and a half for its base, and
about one inch and a half for its height.

Of all the orders of Mammalia the structure of the skull
varies most in the Pachydermata and Cetacea ; indeed, the

41

skull of our animal is as distant in organization and form from
that of a dugong, as the cranium of an elephant is from that of
one of the Edentata. But the peculiarity of the skull in carni-
vorous Cetacea is, that their face is almost entirely formed of
the maxillaries and intermaxillaries, the nasal bones being very
minute, and out of the ordinary place; while the frontals,
separated from each other by the aforesaid predominant
bones, are each thrown down on the sides of the head, forming
the front side of 2^ fossa temporalis as large as the orbit itself,
and still more completely closed.

The frontal, in our animal, is a heavy quadrilateral piece,
with concave sides, one of which forms the top of the orbit.
A point of the maxillary comes near to the front angle of this
orbit, and its posterior wall is formed by part of the
zygomatic apophyse of the temporal, which, however, does
not join the post-orbital apophyse of the frontal, but leaves
it open in this place. The lower part of the orbit has its
front side formed by a short thick triangular jugal, which in
our specimen is not quite entire. The fossa temporalis is of
a pear-shaped form, the point of which is open, and directed
obliquely in front downwards.

The occiput falls almost vertically from the top of the
head. It is sinuated behind on each side, a slight cavity
being at the summit. From this it gently projects to form
the oval eminence of the occipital condyles. The foramen
occipitale is oval ; its vertical height being two inches, and
the width one inch and a half. The occiput itself, which is
eleven inches high by one foot in width, has its lower edge
on each side divided into two lobes, of which the external
one makes an acute angle.

The under side of the skull or roof of the mouth
is convex, like that of the true sperm whale, but otherwise
presents considerable differences. For instance, only two
small points of the intermaxillaries show themselves on
each side of the line of the vomer to form the snout,
which is almost entirely composed on the under-side of
the enormous maxillaries. These have each in their middle

♦^

42

a linear groove five inches and a half long, running up from
the front of the snout, and which probably marks the place
of the bottom of the sockets, which are formed deep in the
gum of the upper jaw, for the purpose of receiving the points
of the teeth of the under jaw.

The palatines are small and quadrilateral. The ptery-
goideans very large, form two angular apophyses behind,
separated from each other by a deep emargination of an
elliptical form.

The lower jaw is a singular contrast to the upper ; the
former being as slight and fragile as the latter is massive and
strong. So weak is the connection of this under jaw with the
skull, that the articulating condyles are scarcely to be detected.
The broad branches are nearly as thin as paper, and although
the sides are reflexed inwardly, as in dolphins, the doubling,
so as to form the hollow tube, does not occur as in them, near
the base of the jaw, but within three inches of the symphysis.
Each triangular branch, which at the articulating base is
semicircular and about four inches high, and convex on the
outside, is, from its extreme thinness, almost transparent.
The symphysis, which is short in comparison to that of the
genus Catodon, is boat shaped and carinated. From its sides
project horizontally about thirteen teeth, curved gently
upwards on each side. The longest of these is situated about
the middle of the symphysis, and is about one and a quarter
inch long. They have all single roots implanted in single
sockets. They are all about half hollow, as in the true
sperm whales, but being so much longer, thinner, and sharper
in proportion, give the animal a quite different aspect, and
perhaps a more ferocious one. Nevertheless, so extremely
feeble an under jaw demonstrates that the long sharp teeth
serve merely for the purpose of retaining the weak mollusca
which, no doubt, form this creature's prey.

4S

DIMENSIONS OP THE SKULL OF EUPHYSETE8 GRAYII,

Length of skull from extremity of snout to the hinder

edge of occipital condyles

Ditto of skull from hinder edge of occipital condyles to

the posterior wall of the right nostril

Ditto of snout from its extremity to the bottom of the

antorbital notch of the maxillary

Breadth of head between the orbits

Greatest width of ridge dividing cavity of head

Ditto of snout between the antorbital notches of the

maxillary . .

Ditto of snout at half distance between its extremity and

the antorbital notch of maxillary

Ditto of snout at extremity

Width between outer edges of intermaxillaries at the line

di'awn between antorbital notches of the maxillary ....
Distance between the suborbitary (or here, superorbitary)

foramina

Distance between anterior points of the intermaxillaries .
Greatest distance between the inner walls of the raised

edges of the maxillaries

Width of left nostril ....

Length of ditto ,

Width of right ditto

Length of ditto

Height of occipital crest above the right nasal bone ....

Ditto of ditto above the left nasal bone

Width of the occipital foramen

Distance between the outer edges of the occipital condyles
Greatest breadth of the occipital at its lower part ....
Height of the occipital from the inferior edge of the

basilar to the summit of the head

Length of lower jaw in a straight line

Ditto of the symphysis

Ditto of the series of dentary alveoles

Distance between outer edges of the articular condyles . .
Height of the mounting branches at base . . . . . . ,

Width of jaw at the place where the symphysis commences

Inches

16

1-2

6

7

14

3

1-2

8

5

2

3

3-4

4

1-2

1

1-4

9

1-5

2

1-5

2

1

1-2

5

1-4

7

1-2

1

1-2

4

11

11

13

1-4

3

1-2

5

1-4

13

4

1-4

1

1-4

THE OS HYOIDES.

The OS hyoides of our animal is remarkably similar to that
of the true sperm whale, and principally differs in that the
lateral pieces are still more rounded ; while the anterior
apophyses of the middle piece are deficient. This structure
is, therefore, further removed from that of true whales and
dolphins than even the os hyoides of the genus Catodon.

44

The styloidean processes are sub -cylindrical pieces, thicker at
each extremity.

Length of middle piece

Width of ditto

Greatest thickness . . . ,

Length of a horn

Width of ditto

Length of styloidean .

Inches.

H

4

IS

3

2^
4

or THE EAR.

As in the true sperm whale and dolphins the small bones
of the ear are confluent into one stony piece, which is sus-
pended in a cavity of the head close to the temporal bone.
It may be divided into three parts, viz. : the labyrinth, tym-
panum, and the somewhat prismatic base from which they
both spring as from a fibrous root. The larger portion
of the labyrinth has externally six points, and the
other portion, which is spherical in Catodon, is here oval
as in dolphins. None of the four holes which almost in a line
separate the oval part of the labyrinth from the larger portion,
are here pierced in a cavity distinct from any of the others. In
dolphins, on the other hand, there is one large semicircular
hole in which three smaller ones are pierced, leaving the
fourth hole outside something as in Catodon^ only still further
removed from the structure of the ear in our animal. The
tympanum resembles the shell called a cone with a wide
longitudinal mouth, and in other respects the ear resembles
that of the Catodon more than the ear of the dolphin.

Having now given a pretty full description of the head
of this small whale, it seems high time for us to consider the
name that ought to be given to it.

46

The character which Mr. Gray, of the British Museum, has
ascribed to his short- headed toothed whales, or his genus
Kogia is as follows : — " Head moderate, broad, triangular.
Lower jaw wide beneath, slender, united by a short sym-
physis in front. Jaw bone of skull broad, triangular, as broad
as long."

Now De Blainville (Ann. Anat. Phys. III. t. 15) had pre-
viously by means of a single skull from the Cape of
Good Hope, and which is lodged in the Paris Museum,
distinguished a cetacean mammal under the name of
Physeter hreviceps, with the following characters, viz. : —
"Skull very broad and high. The frontal crest very
distinct, and the nasal pit very deep, rather like that of the
cachalot. Nose very short and pointed, very rapidly tapering,
only one inch longer than the breadth of occipital bone.
The lower jaw is very wide apart at the condyles, bent
sharply inwards, and united in front by a moderate symphysis
and very narrow, but rounded at the end. Teeth, fourteen
or fifteen, narrow, slender, conical, acute, and rather arched
inwardly ; length of skull, fourteen inches six lines ; lower
jaw, thirteen inches ; separation of the condyles, twelve
inches ; symphysis, about two-ninths of length of lower jaw ;
beak, the length of width at the notch. This skull bears
no resemblance to the skull of the young sperm whale."
And it was upon these few facts recorded by De Blainville,
that Mr. Gray founded his genus Kogia, with the above-
mentioned character.

The Sydney animal, whose head has been described
above, may be called Eupliyseies, and as a genus, the
following characters may be assigned to it, viz. : — Head
moderate, rounded behind, and subtetrangular in front
where the base is broad, and the snout truncated,
slightly reflexed, and marginated at the extremity; the
spermacetic cavity of skull is longitudinally divided by a bony
ridge near the occiput ; single blowhole externally situated in
middle of head at base of snout ; lower jaw, wide at the con-
dyles, having the branches in front united into a short

46

narrow symphysis, with about twenty six teeth, thirteen on
each side.

The following measurements will show the relation between
the genus Kogia and this nsw genus EupJiysetes,

Kogia.

Ihiphysetes.

Inches.

Inches.

Total length of skull , ,

14i

16^
13|

Greatest breadth of ditto

Breadth of ditto at notches

13

Length of beak

6 U7
6 1-7

7
9

Breadth of ditto at notches ....

Length of under jaw

13

14i
12

Width apart of condyles of ditto

12

Length of the symphysis

2 8-9

H

As our animal, therefore, comes obviously near to the
Kogia hreviceps of Gray, who founded the genus on the
description by De Blainville of a skull of his Physeter
hreviceps, it may be incumbent on me to state why a new
name has been adopted, namely, Euphysetes Grayii,

In the first place, the jaw bone of our animal is not as broad
as long. The nasal pit is totally unlike that of the cachalot.
The nose (if by nose be meant snout) is not pointed, but very
truncated or blunt in the skeleton as well as in the perfect
animal ; moreover, instead of the nose being one inch longer
than breadth of occipital bone, this is to the length of snout in
the proportion of about fourteen to eight. The teeth instead
of being fourteen or fifteen are in number twenty-six.
Again the beak, instead of being as long as it is wide
at the notches, has its length in proportion to this width only
in the proportion of seven to nine : and so on. The
few characters given by De Blainville and Gray show suffi-
cient divergency from the form of our animal, and they incline
me to leave the name Kogia hreviceps for the whale that may

47

be found to suit the above description of it as recorded by
those gentlemen. I must however in candour confess that I
am disposed to suspect that the Paris skull has been badly
described, and that it may possibly after all belong to the same
genus as our cetacean. On the other hand, it is almost incredi-
ble, if the genus Kogia be identical with our Euphysetes, that
Mr. Gray should have been silent on what certainly is by far
the most remarkable character of the latter's skull, namely, the
heavy ridge ofbone that longitudinally divides the spermacetic
cavity into two unequal parts. There has been nothing like
this structure hitherto described among Cetacea.

It is to be regretted that a barbarous and unmeaning word
like Kogia should have been admitted into the nomenclature
of so classical a group as the Cetacea ; and with respect to
De Blainville's trivial name hreviceps, however good and
characteristic it may have been in conjunction with the genus
Physeter, it is manifest, that when once these animals with short
heads are separated generically from true sperm whales, such
a name has the defect of belonging to all the species that may
be found in the genus, and consequently becomes a generic
instead of a specific epithet. There has, therefore, in the
naming of our animal been an endeavour to avoid both these
defects, and it has been called Euphysetes Grayii ; where the
word Euphysetes, namely, a good or easy blower, alludes to the
enormous size of the left nostril, and the specific name is
given in honor of J. E. Gray, Esq., chief of the Natural History
Department in the British Museum, a gentleman who has
much distinguished himself in the study of this order of
mammals.*

OF THE SPINAL COLUMN.
The Euphysetes Grayii has forty-four vertebrae in

* If some odoriferous hero of the harpoon should here sing out, *• Give us a
plain English name, and no nonsense ;" I have the satisfaction to inform him
that he can with considerable propriety call this whale "the new codger,"
and thus distinguish it from *' the old codger" which is Mr, Gray's Kogia
breviceps.

48

addition to the seven cervical ones; but these cervical vertebrae
are all so confluent and soldered together, as it were, into one
bone, that it is more difficult to distinguish them from each
other than perhaps in any other cetacean, although the soldering
of all the seven cervical vertebrae into one piece occurs not
unfrequently among the dolphins.

In this sublunary creation, every organic structure passes oif
gradually to some other one ; and it is in consequence of this
law of nature that almost all characters, however distinctive of
groups they may appear on a first glance, will be found to
give way at some point or other of any series which forms a
group. Few characters, for instance, can more generally
denote the class of Mammalia than their seven cervical verte-
brae. The atlas, the axis, and the five others are all to be
seen distinct in the dolphin of the Ganges, as well as in the
swan-like neck of the cameleopard. Among the sloths
however, we find one species with nine cervical vertebrae,
and on the other hand among Cetacea we often see their
seven cervical vertebrae soldered together into one. The
sperm whale, or Catodon, as we have seen, has its atlas
distinct, but its axis and the following five vertebrae are
soldered together into one piece. When a character of this
kind breaks down, it becomes, from its tendency to vary, of
little more value than to distinguish species. Thus Del-
phinus delphis^ D. globiceps, D. griseus, and Phoccena coin-
munis, as also the genus Hyperoodon, have all the cervical
vertebrae soldered together. Delphinus Tursio has them all
distinct, as well as the Platanista or Delphinus Gangeticus,
Linn. In the Cape Rorqual the atlas is distinct, and also the
four last vertebrae, but according to Cuvier the axis and the
third joint are soldered together. In the Cape whale the
whole seven are confluent into one piece.

In the Eiqyhysetes Grayii the one bone, which is formed of
the seven cervical vertebrae, has the atlas and axis marked out
in it by their superior blunt conical transverse apophyses, as
in the Cape whale ; their inferior apophyses being evanescent
as in dolphins. The third and fourth vertebrae are thick.

49

each marked by a short conical superior transverse apophyse,
and having a separation, from each other and from the axis,
distinguished by four lateral holes, while the vestiges of the fifth,
sixth, and seventh vertebrae are thin as paper, and soldered
on to the back of the preceding ones. The superior transverse
apophysis of the third and fourth vertebrae are also distin-
guishable, although those of the right side are more developed
than those of the left ; — a character, by the way, belonging to
the whole of this compound bone as well as to the spine
generally. The vertical apophyse of all the joints may be
considered as uniting to form one short cone on the back of
the neck. The dimensions of this compound cervical ver-
tebra are as follow : —

Total width

Vertical height . .

Length

Width of foramen

Inches.

^

2

There are of dorsal vertebrae 14

Lumbar ditto. ... 9

^ J 1 c>i ) 13 with y bones attached.

Caudal , . ^1 > q , • i

) o termmal.

Making a total of vertebrae. . 45, if the cervical vertebrae be

counted as one.

£

50

TABLE

OP THE DIMENSIONS OF THE VBRTEBRvE OF EUPHYSETES GRAYII, IN INCHES.

Width

Length

Width of

between

No.

Total
width.

Total
Height.

Total
Length.

Width
o: spinal

Height

of
vertical

cf
trans-
verse

the dila-
tation of
trans-

the two

upper

points of

R/C marks

foramen .

apophyse

apophyse

verse
apophyse

the trans-
verse

1

apophyse

5 5-8

4 1-2

2 1-8

2

I

3-4

Compound cervical vertebra.

2

4 1-2

4

1 1-4

1 3-4

3-4

1 1-2

First dorsal vertebra .

3

5

5 1-2

1 1-4

1 1-2

2 1-2

17-10

. /

In this vertebra the transverse
apophyse begins to dilate

4

5

6 1-8

1 7-10

1 3-4

3

2

• <

horizontally and to extend
over the upper branches of the

5

4 7-10

6 3-5

14-5

14 5

3 1-2

1 1-2

1 1-2

.

transverse apophyse of the
preceding vertebra.

6

43-10

6 7-10

1 9-10

14-5

3 1-2

1 1 2

14-5

>

Hei-e first the emargination of

7

4 1-10

71-5

2

1 1-2

3 1-2

1 1-2

2

the transverse apophyse be-
comes visible.

8

4

7 1-5

2

1 1-5

4 1-5

1 1-2

2 1-5

9

4 2-5

7 1-2

2

1 1-5

4 1-2

17-10

3

1 i-10

10

5

7 1-2

2

1

4 1-2

2

3 1-2

9-10

11

6

7 1-2

2 1-5

1

4 4-5

2 1-5

4

9-10

12

6 1-2

8

2 3-10

1

49-10

3

5

9-10

13

7

8 1-5

2 1-2

1

5

3 1-5

5

9-10

14

7 1-2

8 1-2

2 1-2

1

5

3 2-5

0 1-5

9-10

15

8 3-5

8 1-2

2 1-2

1

5

3 3-5

5 1-2

9-10

Last of the dorsal vertebrfe.

16

8 4-5

8 9-10

2 1-2

1

5 1-5

3 1-2

5 3-5

4-5

First lumbar vertebra, where

17

8 4-5

9 1-5

2 4-5

1

5 2-5

3 1-2

5 3-5

4-5

the inferior carina first be-
comes emarghiate.

18

8 3-5

9 1-5

2 4-5

1

5 1-5

3

5 1-2

7-10

19

8 1-5

9

2 4-5

1

4 4-5

3

5 2-5

7-10

20

8

8 1-2

2 4-5

7-10

4

3

5 2-5

3-5

Here the inferior carina is long-
est, the horn of the lime being
I J inch long

21

7 1-2

8

2 4-5

6-10

3 1-2

2 1-2

5 2-5

3-5

Last of tlie lumbar vertebrae,

22

7

6 3-5

2 4-5

1-2

3 1-5

2 1-5

5 2-5

3-5

wliere inferior carina ceases
to be emarghiate, and also

23

6 1-2

5 4-5

2 3-5

1-2

2 1-2

2 1-5

5

3-5

first appearance of articu-
lating siu'face for V bones

24

5 3-5

5

2 2-5

1-2

2

1 1-2

4 1-2

3-5

25

5 1-2

4 4-5

2 2-5

1-2

1 1-2

12-5

4

1-5

Last vestige of bifurcation of

26

4 1-2

4

2 1-5

1-2

1 1-5

1 1-5

3 1-2

superior branch of transverse
apopliyse.

27

3 4-5

4

2 1-5

1-2

1

4-5

3 1-5

28

3 2-5

31-2

2

1-2

4-5

3-5

3

29

2 4-5

3 2-5

14-5

2-5

1-2

2-5

2 1-2

30

2 2-5

3

1 4-5

2 5

2-5

1-5

2

31

2

2 4-5

1 3-5

2-5

2-5

Trans-

32

14-5

2 1-2

1 1-2

2-5

2-5

. .

verse
apophyse

33

13-5

2 1-5

1 1-2

3-10

1-5

here alto-

34

1 3-5

14-5

12-5

1-5

• 1

gether
becomes

Here medullary foramen fi/sl

35

1 2-5

12-5

1

1 5

indistinct

opens, and tlie last of the \
bones occurs.

36

1 2-5

11-5

1

1-5

,

37

12-5

1

4-5

.

[*

38

1 2-5

4-5

4-5

• •

39

11-5

3-5

4-5

• ■

• •

40

1

3 5

3-5

•

41

9-10

3-5

3-5

• )

• •

42

4-5

1-2

1-2

43

3-5

2-5

2-5

^ ,

• 1

.,

• •

44

1-2

2-5

2-5

^

This globular joini is deficient,

45

2-5

2-5

2-5

• «

*

• •

:(

but its place is marked out
in the part of tail that was

1

found.

51

To judge from the articulating surfaces, there are about
thirteen V bones in this animal. Of these, however, only-
seven have been found, the first of which belongs to the
twenty-fifth vertebra. The following table will express their
dimensions, and also the particular vertebrae to which they
were attached by cartilaginous ligaments : —

No. of the vertebra.

Breadth of the V
bones found.

Height of the V
bones found.

Inches.

Inches.

25

2 2-5

2 1-5

29

12-5

n-2

30

12-5

12-5

31

1 1-5

1

32

1 1-5

3-5

33

4-5

1-2

34

1-2

2-5

OF THE REBS.

The ribs are not very round as in Catodon, but flattish and
often somewhat angular. The animal is thus more com-
pressed, that is, narrower and deeper in proportion than
Catodon. Instead of ten pair of ribs, as in the true sperm
whale, the Euphysetes has no less than fourteen pairs, of which
the last pair are merely minute rudimentary bones floating in
the side of the animal and entirely disjoined from the vertebral
axis. The first rib, which is broad and flat, is bent in the
middle almost at right angles, and has but one articulating
surface ; that is, to the transverse process of the first dorsal
vertebra. The seven following pairs have each two articu-
lating surfaces for each consecutive two of the first seven
vertebrae, and the next five pairs have only one articulating
surface for each rib. All the ribs are more or less arched,

52

but become rapidly straighter and shorter until the fourteenth,
which is only about one inch and a-half long, and has the
slightest possible curvature. The length of the ribs are as
follows — but it must be recollected on the view of these
dimensions that, except the first, we possess no rib of the left
side. Possibly the ribs of left side, if known, would prove
smaller than their corresponding ribs. Thus the right trans-
verse apophyse of the ninth vertebra is perforated on the side,
but not the left one, although there is an open groove in it
for the passage of the left tendon. In the same way the
thirteenth and fourteenth vertical apophyses are perforated on
the right side of the emargination, but on the left side these
holes are open as usual, and only grooves.

Rib.

Inches.

Rib.

Inches.

1st

15

8th..

9th ..

10th ..

... 22 , These ribs have
2Q ( a longitudmal
( groove in their
. . . 18 / middle.

2nd

3rd

20

24

4th

25

11th...

...16

5th

24^

12th ..

.. 14^

6th

24

13th . . .
14th...

... lU

... n

7th

23

OF THE STERNUM.

Only one of the pieces of the sternum was at first found, and
this would appear to be the middle one. It is composed of
two bones confluent at one of their sides, as is made evident
by a longitudinal medial furrow on the outside. The shape
of this piece is unsymmetrical, but quadrilateral, the right
component bone being somewhat larger than the left one.
The dimensions of the entire bone are as follows :

58

Length of medial line

Width at top

Width at bottom

Inches.

1|

2

If

Very lately, however, by sifting the sand, another and
smaller bone has been detected, which appears to be one of
the component bones of the terminal or third piece of the
sternum. What is most worthy of notice in it is, that it
shows the sternum of 'Eupliysetes to have been terminated by
two distinct flat triangular bones, almost exactly as in the
Sydney Catodon. This terminating bone has the points of
the triangle blunt or rounded off; the base of it is rather
more than three-quarters of an inch long, and the sides are
each about one and a- fifth inches long.

OF THE PECTORAL FINS.

It will be seen from the following description of the hands,
fore extremities, or pectoral fins of the Euphysetes, that it
possesses in these organs no strength in proportion to that
which exists in the fins of the true sperm whale. Indeed in
all the Cetacea the pectoral fins can, from their feeble struc-
ture, be of little use as organs of locomotion, and probably are
principally of service in supporting their young. In
our animal the scapula is a remarkably thin, flat, smooth
bone, with scarcely any convexity. Indeed the little con-
vexity which exists in this broad subtriangular plate is
towards its fore edge, where this convexity is turned towards
the ribs. The upper edge of this scapula forms nearly the
quadrant of a circle. Its posterior edge is concave, and the
anterior edge sinuated somewhat in the shape of any. The
outer crest of the base of this scapula gives rise to the acro-
mion, which is also a thin subtriangular plate, and from the

54

inner ridge a thicker and more solid coracoid apophyse
projects in the shape of a parallelogram.

DIMENSIONS OF THE SCAPULA.

Greatest length

Width of convex side

Ditto concave side

Ditto anterior side

Breadth of neck

Projection of the acromion

Greatest height of ditto

Projection of coracoid apophyse ,
Height of ditto at the extremity

With respect to the humerus, that apophyse on the front
edge of it which is so conspicuous in true sperm whales, and
which represents the deltoidal crest, is here very little promi-
nent, but in length it occupies more than one-half of the front
edge. The humerus itself is flatter than in Catodon, very
concave behind, and in front presenting a waved edge.

Total length of humerus

Greatest width of ditto

Semi- diameter of hemispherical head.

Inches.
4

2 1-5
2

The cubitus or ulna is not confluent or soldered to any
other bone, but perfectly a distinct piece, like the radius. The
thin posterior edge of the cubitus is waved, and the olecranian
apophyse projects so very little as to make its base not wider
than the other end of it. The radius is in shape and dimen-
sions very like the cubitus, only it is thicker and more solid.
The width of radius at top and bottom is nearly the same,
only in the middle it is constricted and flattish as well as the

55

ulna. The latter however has a small convexity in the middle
of its outer margin under the semicircular olecranian process —

Length of cubitus ... .

Width at base, including olecranian apophyse.

Width at neck .

Length of the radius ,

Width at top

Width in the middle ...

Inches.

2

1-2

1

4-5

1

3 10

2

1-2

1

3-5

1

1-2

The carpal bones are in the E/iphysetes not so far sepa-
rated from each other by cartilage as in the Catodon.
They are seven in number ; viz. : two linear transverse bones
and five of a flat, round, irregular shape, a small hexagonal
one of which is placed between one of the transverse bones
and the metarcarpal bone of the thumb. This trans-
verse carpal bone is sub-triangular, and placed at the termina-
tion of the radius. The remaining thin transverse bone is
trapezoidal and situated between the base of the ulna and the
two outer carpal bones. The forefinger has also two large flat
carpal bones, placed between the corner of the radius and the
metacarpal bone of the fore-finger. Of these two carpal bones
the one nearest the radius is pentagonal, and the other hexa-
gonal. From one side of the hexagonal bone proceeds the
metacarpal bone of the third finger. The largest carpal bone,
which is subpentagonal, lies between the trapezoidal transverse
carpal and the metacarpal bone of the fourth finger, while a
small subquadrangular carpal bone joins the outer edge of the
linear trapezoidal carpal with tha metacarpal bone of the little
finger. This position of the carpal bones among themselves,
so widely different from the disposition of them in the pectoral
fin of the true sperm whale, is nevertheless certain; but the way
in which they are connected with the metacarpal bones is not so
certain, as only the bones of the thumb and fore-finger, part of
the right fin, were found in situ. Almost all the smaller bones

56

of the fins were detected by sifting the sand on the beach,
and those of the left fin remain still imperfect. As in the
true sperm whale, the metacarpal bones appear as the first
joints of the five fingers, that of the thumb being the most
dilated at the carpal end.

The phalanges appear gradually to diminish towards the
points of the digits, and the right fin is so perfect that we
may account the thumb to contain two phalanges, the index
six, the middle finger six, the fourth finger four, and little
finger three, perhaps only two.

OF THE PELVIS.

The pelvis in the Euphysetes, as in Catodon, is composed of
four bones suspended in the flesh, but they are of very
different form. The two middle ones are quadrangular, each
longer than broad, flattish on one side and triquetral or pris-
matic at the end where it articulates with the second kind of
pelvic bone ; this second kind is a broad subquadrangular
bone, thickest at the middle point of its inner side where it
articulates with the former, and from that articulation it
flattens out into an oval suspended obliquely in the flesh. A
suspicion here arises in the mind of any person conversant with
Beale's description of the pelvis in his Yorkshire whale, that
as his words will so accurately suit the two exterior bones of
our Euphysetes, it may be possible that the two middle ones
of that specimen were lost, or at least not detected. Indeed
these bones, from lying insulated in the flesh of the belly, are
difficult to find, and in consequence it is very rare that the
few skeletons of Cetacea in museums are provided with them.

The dimensions of the bones of the pelvis in the right side
oi Euphysetes are as follow —

57

Middle Bone — Longest side

Opposite side to same . . .

Shortest or triquetral side

Opposite side to same . . . .
Exterior Bone —Articulating side

Longest side

Curved side

Shortest side

We have thus passed in review the several parts of a
cetacean whose bony structure comes very near that of the
common sperm whale. Nevertheless, its external form
demonstrates how little importance is to be attached to most
of those characters which have been hitherto considered by
Lacepede, Cuvier, and other great zoologists, to be ordinate.
Here, for instance, we have a sperm whale, with a short
moderately sized head, and a depressed snout like that of a
dolphin, with a dolphin's falcate dorsal fin, and single blow-
hole situated in the middle of the head, at the base of the
snout. As for the want of teeth in the upper jaw, it has
already been shown to be common among dolphins.

The discovery of the Euphysetes Grayii is useful in many
respects. It shows the error of the two brothers Cuvier in
discrediting the existence of the black fish of the northern
hemisphere ; it shows the mistake of Professor Bell in
assigning the black fish of our whalers to the same genus as
the common sperm whale ; it shows, at the same time, the
accuracy of the ancient descriptions of the black fish by Sir
Robert Sibbald and Otho Fabricius*; and finally, the
shrewdness of Mr. Gray, in eliciting from such a mass of
confusion so much correct information respecting an animal

* It is very possible, nay, probable, that th*> black fish of Otho Fabricius
is a different species from that of Sir R. Sibbald, particularly if it be true
that the former has only 22 teeth in all; for the latter has 21 teeth on each
side of under jaw, making 42 in all.

58

which he only knew by Sir Robert Sibbald's figure. The
truth is, that the Ewphysetes comes much closer in external
appearance to the black fish than to the sperm whale. It in
a manner proves the existence, now or formerly, of such a
species as Sibbald and Fabricius described from the northern
part of the German Ocean. Like the Euphysetes, the
black fish is said to have a round head with a depressed
and truncated snout; it had also a dorsal fin, and its
bloAvhole was situated on the middle of the head. Now,
as the skeleton of the Euphysetes comes so near to that
of Catodon, it is impossible that Mr. Gray can be wrong
in considering the black fish (the Physeter Tursio of
Linnseus) to belong truly to the family of sperm whales.

The known genera that belong to the family of Catodontidce
may by their external appearance be shortly characterized as
follows, viz. : —

No dorsal fin, but only
a hump instead. Blow-
hole at the extremity
of snout.

Dorsal fin. Blow-
hole on middle of head.

1. Catodon.

2. KOGIA?

3. Euphysetes.

4. Physeter.

Head between a third
and fourth of the whole
length.

Head moderate, tri-
angular, and pointed in
front ?

Head moderate, like
that of a dolphin, and
truncated in front.

Head half length of
rest of skeleton ? Blow-
hole covered by an
operculum or flap ?

But of anatomical characters by which we may separate the
Euphysetes from all other described genera of the sperm
whale family, there is none so striking as that ridge of bone
which divides the back part of the spermacetic cavity into two
lesser cavities nearly equal in size.

CHAPTER III.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

In this short chapter I propose to discuss, first, the osteolo-
gical affinities of the Catodontidce , or family of sperm whales ;
secondly, the true characters which distinguish that family, —
and thirdly, the causes of their rarity.

The first of these questions regards the animals to which
the sperm whale family, in the structure of their skeleton,
come the nearest. I have already, in a multitude of points,
shown their close affinity to the dolphin family, and the fol-
lowing series of DelpMnidxB is arranged very nearly in the
manner that Mr. Gray has, in his late work on Cetacean con-
sidered to be the natural disposition of these animals.

DELPHINID^.
Normal Group^

FLUYIATILE.

Symphysis of , a. Iniina, Gray.
under jaw more
than half length
of jaw, and
much com-

pressed.

Aberrant Group.

MARINE.

b. Platanistina, Gray.

'c. Hyperoodontina, Gray.

Symphysis of

Tit'i J'T^. ""^^^ d. MoNOCEBATiNA, Gray.
halt length of ^

jaw.

e. Delphinina, Gray.

Maxillary bones
horizontal.

Maxillary bones
rising vertically on
edge, so as to form a
crest over the nos-
trils.

Upper jaw tooth-
less, ilaxillary
bones raised verti-
cally on edge, so as
to form a crest over
the nostrils.

Upper jaw with
few teeth. Maxil-
lary bones sub-hori-
zontal, and rather
plane.

Upper jaw with
many teeth. Max-
illary bones sub -ho-
rizontal and plane.

60

But if such be the series of natural affinity among the true
dolphins^ it must be confessed that it is very difficult to discover
good characters, founded on the skeleton, by which sperm
whales can be excluded from the group. It is very clear that
our two Sydney whales described in the preceding chapters
touch the above series at some point between Platanistina and
Hyperoodontina ; for they have the toothless upper jaw of the
latter tribe of dolphins, and that long symphysis of the under
jaw which is so remarkable in the fresh water dolphins, while
a crest is formed by the elevation of the maxillary bones in all
the three groups. The difference is that in all the dolphins of
the above series the base of the maxillary is extended laterally
over the frontal, whereas the base of the maxillary in
sperm whales is extended more behind for the purpose of
aiding to form the spermacetic cavity. In all dolphins the
nostrils approach to equality and symmetry, whereas in the
family of sperm whales the nostrils are exceedingly unequal
and unsymmetrical — and thus have a peculiar location in respect
to the distorted and dislocated nasal bones. In the Catodontidce
also, the frontal bone is very conspicuous over the orbit, while
in true dolphins it is comparatively covered by the lateral
dilatation of the maxillary bones. Again a very remarkable
distinction is this, that the toothed edges of the upper and
under jaws in all dolphins are parallel, whereas in sperm whales
the sides of the under jaw are linear and laterally compressed
from where the symphysis takes place ; and the tapering upper
jaw is thus very much broader than the under.

Although such are perhaps the most valid characters by which
sperm whales can be separated from marine dolphins, it is to
be observed that if the Catodontidce form a group of value
equivalent to that of Delphinidce, the sperm whales, and parti-
cularly the EtiphyseteSy can be only aberrant forms connecting
the first -mentioned group with the dolphin family. It musi^
be granted also on this hypothesis that the researches of
naturalists have not as yet made us acquainted with the
normal form of Catodontidce, nor yet with those species of the
group that pass off to the Balcenidce or family of right whales.

61

If I may be permitted to express my own opinion on a
subject of considerable difficulty, and which certainly admits
of much doubt — although the difficulty proceeds entirely from
the paucity of species known, — I confess that I think the
affinities of carnivorous Cetacea among themselves would be
still better expressed by placing all the living species that
are known in the two following groups : Balcenidce and Del-
phinidce. We may then make the sperm whales — animals,
which, as we have shown, diffigr in no important particular
from dolphins — fall into the series of Delphinidce.

But in order to understand this matter more clearly, we had
better consider the place which the order of Cetacea holds
in the class of Mammalia, This order is distinguished neatly
from all other mammals by the absence of hinder feet j and
the typical Cetacea are evidently those, which, in other
respects differ the most in structure from the other orders of
Mammalia. Now, one of the characters most prevalent in
these other orders is the possession of molar teeth implanted
in the maxillaries. Incisors ©r intermaxillary teeth are often
wanting, but, except in a few Edentata, which are destitute
of all teeth, the maxillary bones are always provided with
molars. Let us ask ourselves, then, what Cetacea are least
oceanic in general structure, and, at the same time, in the
possession of molars? The answer at once will be^ the
herbivorous group. The existing herbivorous Cetacea,
together with the extinct genus Zeuglodon, and perhaps
another fossil genus, form, without doubt, the aberrant group
of the order, and are all distinguished by the possession of
molar teeth with double roots, as distinct from their incisors.
The remaining Cetacea, forming the normal group of the
order, have no such molar teeth. ^ These may be divided into
1st, true whales, Balcenidce, or those Cetacea which have no
teeth, but more or less baleen instead : and, 2ndly, dolphins,
or Delphinidce, which have only conical teeth with single
roots, and more or less hollow, like those of crocodiles.
Now, this last group, or the family Delphinidce, may be
divided into sub-families, as foUows; the genus Inia of

62

D'Orbigny, serving
Delphinina.

to connect the Platanistina with the

A. Maxillary
bones sub-hori-
zontal and plane

B. Maxillary
bones at their
base rising ver-
tically on their
edge.

Delphinina.

monocerotina.
Hyperoodontina.

Catodontina.

Platanistina.

Teeth in both jaws.

No teeth in under jaw.

Noteeth in upper jaw. Under
jaw with short symphysis.

No teeth in upper jaw. Under
jaw with long symphysis. Nos-
trils very unequal in size.

Teeth in both jaws. Under
jaw with long symphysis.

Of the many characters which I have before given as
separating the sperm whale tribe from other dolphins, it is
rather singular that Mr. Gray should not have noticed one.
The definition given by him of his family of Caiodontidce or
toothed whales, is as follows : — "Head large, upper jaw
toothless, lower jaw with conical teeth fitting into cavities
in the edge of upper jaw. Blowers united together by a
lunate opening."

Now in the first place no sperm whales have cavities in the
edge of upper jaw, while there are dolphins in possession of
every one of Mr. Gray's other characters. The assertion of
Mr. Bennet that rudiments of teeth are to be found in the
upper jaw of young sperm whales, may be doubted; but Mr.
Gray himself has stated that the genus Physeter or blaclc-fish,
which he makes to belong to the group, has the blowholes
separated The least objectionable part of the above
definition consists perhaps in the vague words " head
large," and yet Mr. Gray assigns his genus Kogia to
the family Avith the contrary character of "head moderate."
No doubt the large size of the head in proportion
to the body is a very striking characteristic of the genera Ca-
todon and Phijseter ; but this is not particularly remarkable in
EupJiysetes, which has a head in external form very like to that
of some dolphins, and not in proportion larger.

* Is this correct ?

63

Premising that I am in Mr. Gray's and M. Cuvier'scase of
never having seen a black-fish or even any part of one, I shall
now venture to offer my own definition of the group of Cato-
dontina as more accurate than that given by my predecessors
as the character of the

Family CATODONTIDiE.

Upper surface of massive skull concave for the reception of
spermaceti. Nostrils enormously disproportionate in size, the
left one being the largest, and the nasal bones as well as those
of the face generally, being thereby unsymmetrical and
distorted. Blowhole externally single. (In all ?) Branches
of the toothed lower jaw united in front by a long symphysis,
which is always considerably narrower than the toothless upper
jaw. Teeth of under jaw conical, hollow like those of a
crocodile, and fitting into cavities formed in the gum of the
upper jaw.

It has been more hastily conceded than truly said, that the
age of large animals has passed away — that In those prec-Ada-
mite eras of time which form the principal subject of geological
study, the vis creatrix acted if not more complexly, at least
on a larger scale than at present — that the Megalosaurus, for
instance, was larger than the Mastodon, and the Mastodon
again, larger than any animal production of our own dege-
nerate time. Many enthusiastic admirers of the world's
infancy, therefore, appear to have overlooked the actual
existence of an order of mammals which, according to geolo-
gical evidence appeared first on the face of our globe so lately
as since the cretacean period. Yet1:his order now is apparently
as numerous in species as in any previous sera, and con-
tains in it the living great northern rorqual ( Balcenoi^tera
physalus of Gray) an animal larger than any extinct geologi-
cal species known, and probably the very " Baloena Britan-
nica^^ which Juvenal fixed on as his standard of cetacean
hugeness.

64

If our earth be trodden at present by no mammal so
large as the Mastodon of North America, nor by any bird
so huge as the Deinornis or moa of New Zealand, their dis-
appearance is obviously so recent, that there is little difficulty
in supposing that the extirpation of such species may be
owing to the hand of man. Indeed the various species of the
animal kingdom seem to be in danger of violent extinction in
direct proportion to their size. The increase of this renders
them in general less ferocious compared with other species.
A porpoise, that is, the least of known Cetacea, is exceedingly
voracious; but a sperm whale (whether Catodon or JEuphysetes)
which is nearly, as we have seen, the same as a porpoise in
all the essentials of its structure, is rendered comparatively
harmless by the want of teeth in the upper jaw. This defi-
ciency perhaps was necessary to aid its bulky stores of
spermaceti in balancing the specific gravity of its massive
skull. Kight whales are in like manner rendered mild
and timid by an entire want of teeth, although the weight of
of their skull is also relieved by the peculiar way in which the
quantity of bone in it is reduced.* Thus it is that immense
size is not ordinarily the characteristic of a beast of prey, and
that the largest Cetacea feed only on minute mollusca. As for
the immense size of Cetacea, it evidently proceeds from their
buoyancy in the medium in which they live, and their being
enabled thus to counteract the force of gravity.

Sperm whales are found to inhabit warmer seas than true
whales, and are brought more within the reach of those
persons whose love of destruction is attracted by their size and
timidity, and whose love of money is excited by the value of
their oil. Many whalers of late have declared that the number
of young sperm calves annually killed is so great as to threaten
the speedy annihilation of this kind of whale. With less
motives for killing off the species, thus certainly within our
own times has man wantonly extinguished the Nestor pro-

* It is for a similar reason that so many dolphins and other Cetacea have
the branches of their under jaw hollow, while the symphysis is very short.

65

ductus of Phillip Island, and probably, at an earlier date,
occasioned the similar fate of the singular Dodo.

But while we may regret the premature extinction of a
harmless and useful species of animal by the destructiveness
of another one, there can be no doubt that the Creator has
imposed a natural limit to the duration of every species on
the surface of this globe. Just as individuals are born into
the world, live, and, after an appointed period, die ; so we
are taught by geology, that the time of the natural
existence of every species is also limited. "We observe the first
appearance of a species of animal in one stratum, we view it
flourishing, as it were, in another, then we trace it
languishing, and its numbers rapidly decreasing in a later
stratum, until, at last, it appears utterly extinct. We see
other limited durations appointed for the existence of
genera, families, and orders, so that analogy would make us
infer that it must be the same — for all groups of which in
geological strata we have, in a manner, witnessed the
commencement. It thus may be that classes, nay, the two
kingdoms of animal and vegetable nature themselves, — for
these, after all, are but groups of greater dimensions — as they
have had in geological strata a visible beginning, so must
they also in process of time have their due end.

Nor need speculation cease here ; since it would surely be
the height of presumption to suppose that when all that
organization of matter which is dependent for existence on
atmospheric air, shall, with that gas, have passed away, other
kinds of organic beings may not remain, where atmospheric
air has never existed, or even where it may have ceased to
exist. Nevertheless, it is true that there is no vestige of
material life having ever existed^ on this terrestrial globe,
except in connexion in some way with the atmosphere, and
dependent on it. Nay, it would appear from observation,
that the order of the creation of species — aye, and perhaps
the order of their extinction too — has been carried on in
point of time, with reference to the successive conditions of
the circumambient air. Thus, aquatic beings have preceded

F

66

terrestrial. But there is an exception, which, as usual proves
the rule ; and, pursuing the consequences legitimately to be
deduced from the above facts, we may, perhaps, be able to
arrive at the true reason for marine animals, warm-hlooded^
like whales, having been called into existence so late, when
their proper food, Mollusca and Crustacea, had, for ages
before the earliest tertiary period, abounded in the waters
which then covered a great part of the face of the earth.

Kemp and Fairfax, Printers, Lower George-street, Sydney.

EXPLANATION OF PLATES.

PLATE I. — Fig. 1. Skeleton of Catodon Australis as set up.

Fig. 2. Six bones wliich compose the sternum of same.

Fig. 3. Os hyoides, where the dotted lines denote the cartilage

that connects it with the styloidean processes.
Fig. 4. Bones of the pelvis, as found in the carcass of another

sperm whale, cast up between Botany Bay and Port

Hacking.

PLATE II. — Fig. I. Skeleton oi Euphysetes Grayii, as set up.
Fig. 2. Upper side of skull of same.
Fig. 3. Under side of skull of same.
Fig. 4. Occipital view of skiill of same.
Fig. 5. Under jaw of same.
Fig. 6. Pelvis of same.

ERRATA.

Vago 8, last line — For "rocorded" read recorded.

Page 9, No. II — For " owipitoZ /ojuwien" read occipitalbone.

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