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Show 212 M""MMAJ ... IA. the whalers always endeavour to attack the animal from that quarter. If this species alone f~rnis\1es, _as is asserted, al.l the spermaceti and ambergris of commerce, 1t must be very Widely diffused, for these articles are drawn from the North and the South. Cachalots, without dorsal fins, 11ave been taken e'('en h1 the Adriat\c.( 1) The PHYSETER, Lacep. Is a Cachalot with a dorsal fin .. Two species only are distinguishe~ among them, microps, and tursio or mular, a~d those, from the very t:quivocal character of teeth, arcuated or stratght, shar~ or blunt.(2) · They are found in the Mediterranean as well as 1n the Arctic Ocean. Those of the latter are said to be the m<;>st inveter~te ~nemie& of the Seals. BALJENA, Lin. 'fhe Whales are equalln size to the Cachalots, and in the propor. tiona} magnitude of the head~ although the latter is not so much enlarged in front; but they have no teeth. The two sides of thei~ upper jaw, which is keel-shaped, are furnis.hed with thin, compact1 (1) We perceive no real dilfer~nce betw~en, ~his C!).cb,a.lQt, of which we have good figures and several parts of the skeleton, and that of Roberscm, Ph,il. Trans.1 V9l. LX, Qf which Bonnaterre h~s made :,1. ~pecies u1,1der the name of trumpo, ~hich is applied, at Bermuda, to a Cachalot, without any mm·e pl,'ecise h1dication. As to th'e Little Cacha,ot, P~ catoc¥m, Lin., no other difference is mentioned besides thnt of size, than that the teeth are sharper, a circumstance that may depend upon age. It is not even ~ertain that those which have been produced are not those of some large Dolphin. The Pltyaeter.. macrocep}4alu.s ofLinn2eus, Ca4:lt. cy.lind1·iqu.e of Bonnt\tetTe, (genus PKYSALUS of ~ncep.) would ha,ve il- good character in the dis.tant location of its spiracle; but this sp~ci~s. m<';relr r~sts o~ ~ qad ~gure of Al:lderson, and no ooehas. ever see~ any thin~ like i~. , The albicans of Briss()n., ltt~:idjisk of Egede and An<,lerson, ~onverted .by Gmeho in.t9 a variety of the macrocephalus, is the belNga dolpltin, which sheds tts teelb •1 a very early age, a fact we have ascertained. (2) The only one tolerably well ascertained, is from a bad figure of Bayer, Act. Nat. Cur. 111, pl. 1, taken from an animal thr~wn on shore at Nice. :be name m1.4lar has been very vagu~ly appli<:d to i~; tl'\e mv.lar of Nierell;lherg 151 Cachalot, it is true ; but there is nothing to l'rove it is one species more than another. As to the different indications of the Cachalots of' authot'S) see my Oss. Foss. tom. V, p. 328, et seq~ Add to them the figure given in the Jeurn. des Voyage~ of Februat·y 1826, and that in the Voy. de Freycinet, pl. xii. With respect to the Cachalots described by M. de Lncepede, Mem. du Museum, tom. IV, fr~: Japanese drawings, the very nature of the document on whicl1 they rest forbl ~ me ft·om ~iving them a ~lace h~re , CETACEA. 213 transverse laminre, called whalebone, formed of a kind of fibrous horn, fringed at the edges, which serve to retain the little animals. on which these enormous Cetacea feed. Their lower jaw, supported by two osseous branches arched externally and towards the summit and completely u~armed, lodges a very thick and fleshy tongue, an~ when the mouth 1s closed, envelopes the internal part of the upper jaw, and the whalebone with which it is invested. These organs do ~ot allow wh~les ~o feed on s~ch large animals as their size might mduce us to 1magme, They hve on fish, but principally on Worms; Mollusca, and Zoophytes, selecting, it is said, the very smallest, which become entangled in the filaments of the whalebone. Their nostrils, better organised for the sense of smell than those of the Dolphins, are furnished with some ethmoidal plates, and appear to receive some small fi.laments from the olfactory nerve. Their crecum is short. Bal. mysticetus,( 1) L.; Lacep. Cet. pl. 2 and 3, under the name of Nord-Caper, and Scoresby, Arct. Reg. II, pJ. 12. (The Comm~ n Whale. )(2) It has long been considered the largest of all ammals; but from the late observations of captain Scoresby it appears that it scarcely ever exceeds seventy feet, a length frequently surpassed by the wrinkle-bellied whales. It has no dorsal fin. To procure its fat or blubber, which is sometimes several feet in thickness, and contains immense quantities of oil, whole fleets are annually equipped. Formerly sufficiently bold. to ventur~ into our seas, it has gradually retired to the extreme .North, where the number is daily diminishing. Besides oil,. 1t produces black and flexible whalebone, eight or ten feet in length, e~ch individual having from eight to nine hundred strips on each s1de of the palate. One hundred aAd twentv tuns of oil are obtained from a single whale. Shell-fish attach.. themselves. to its skin, and multiply there as on a rock, and some of the Balanus family even penetrate into it. It is asserted that these (1) The ~~1..«Htt of Aristotle and JElian, which was an enemy of the Dolphin,. appears to have been a large cetaceous animal armed with teeth ; the only tl·ueWhale known to Aristotle was his mysticetus, which had, says he set2e in the mouth· 1 ' M . m Pace of teeth; most probably the Whale, with the wrinkled throat ofthe- W~dtte~ranean. It is thought, however, that Juvenal alludes to the c~mmon ale Ill, the fbllowing line, b "Quanto delpbinis balrena britannica maJ· or-" ut th L • · ' . ~ atms apphed the term B.alrena, in a general way, to all the great Cetacea Just as the e l f J.. . ,. P 0P e o t.~e North do that of Whale, or Wall and its derivatives a. remark essentt•a 1 1 y requisite to those who study their writin'g s ' (2} The ld fi f · ·. fe 0 gure o Mal'tens, reCOJ?ted Lacep. J, pl. 1, and Itl all other authors,. presents the head too Ion~. |
