vJu^s: txr- g£~r:s :jx~~?:.~- r~ imciffiiEiicxJi^r ^J^tv^Aliotbnj -\) BY .IOIIX 1>.MA>T M.1). >?]ntabclplnrt. ^r^»^r;;c STOlMiART fc ATUKRTOX. 1K21! AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY VOL. III. PART I.—MASTOLOGY. y BY JOHN D. jJODMAN, M.D. Professor of Natural History in the Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania; one of the Professors of the Philadelphia Museum; Member of the American Philosophical Society; of the Philadelphia Acad- emy of Natural Sciences, &c. SECOND EDITION. .... •) PulaflelpiiCa: KEY AND MIELKIE, No. 181, MARKET STREET. 1831. V.3 Eastern District of Pennsylvania, to wit: Be it remembered, that on the first day of February, in the fifty-se- cond year of the independence of the United States of America, A.D. 1828, P. H. Nicklin, of the said district, has deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit: American Natural History. Vol. III. Part I. Mastology. By John D. Godman, M.D. Professor of Natural History in the Franklin Insti- tute of Pennsylvania ; one of the Professors of the Philadelphia Mu- seum; Member of the American Philosophical Society; of the Phila- delphia Academy of Natural Sciences, &c. In conformity to the act of the congress of the United States, enti- tled, " an act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned ;" and also to the act, en- titled, " an act supplementary to an act, entitled, ' an act for the en- couragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned,' and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints." D. CALDWELL, Clerk of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia. Printed by James Kay, Jun. & Co. Printers to the American Philosophical Society. No. 4, Minor Street. AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY. CHAPTER I. Genus Ox ; Bos; L. Fr. Boeuf. Germ. Ochs. Sp. Bully. ltal. Bove. GENERIC CHARACTERS. The head is large, having a straight outline; large ears and eyes; a large muzzle and long smooth tongue. The subocular sinuses do not ex- ist. The body is of large size, supported upon strong legs. A fold of skin depends below the neck, called the dewlap. The tail is frequently long and terminates in a brush ; in some species it is of a mid- dling length. The horns are conical, smooth and simple, variously curved, though often turned late- rally with the points upwards. Dental System. •£ f 12 Upper ] 12 Molar. 4> f £ 1 i 8 Incisive '©} 20 Lower < w [ M2 Molar 4 THE BISON Species 1.—The Bison. Bos Americanus; Gmel. Taurus Mexkanus : Hernand. Mex. 587. Tauri Vaccssque, Ibid. Anim. p. 10. The Buffalo : Catesby, Carol. 28, tab. 20. Bauf Sauvage ; Dopratz, Louisiane, ii. 66. American Bull ? Penn. Quad. pi. ii, fig. 2. [Commonly called Buff aloe.~\ From other species of the ox kind, the Bison is well distinguished by the following peculiarities. A long shaggy hair clothes the fore part of the body, forming a well marked beard beneath the lower jaw, and descending behind the knee in a tuft. This hair rises on the top of the head in a dense mass, nearly as high as the extremities of the horns. Over the forehead it is closely curled, and matted so thickly as to .deaden the force of a rifle ball, which either rebounds, or lodges in the hair, merely causing the animal to shake his head as he heavily bounds along. The head of the bison is large and ponderous, compared to the size of the body; so that the mus- cles for its support, necessarily of great size, give great thickness to the neck, and by their origin from the prolonged dorsal vertebral processes form the peculiar projection called the hump. This hump is of an oblong form, diminishing in height as it re- cedes, so as to give considerable obliquity to the line of the back. THE BISON 5 The eye of the bison is small, black, and bril- liant; the horns are black and very thick near the head, whence they curve upwards and outwards, rapidly tapering towards their points. The outline of the face is somewhat convexly curved, and the upper lip, on each side being papillous within, di- lates and extends downwards, giving a very oblique appearance to the lateral gape of the mouth, in this particular resembling the ancient architectural bas- reliefs representing the heads of oxen. The physiognomy of the bison is menacing and ferocious, and no one can see this formidable ani- mal in his native wilds, for the first time, without feeling inclined to attend immediately to his per- sonal safety. The summer coat of the bison differs from his winter dress, rather by difference of length than by other particulars. In summer, from the shoulders backwards, the hinder parts of the ani- mal are all covered with a very short fine hair, that is as smooth and as soft to the touch as velvet. The tail is quite short and tufted at the end, and its utility as a fly-brush is necessarily very limited. The colour of the hair is uniformly dun, but the long hair on the anterior parts of the body is to a certain extent tinged with yellowish or rust colour. These animals, however, present so little variety in regard to colour, that the natives consider any re- markable difference from the common appearance as resulting from the immediate interference of the Great Spirit. 6 THE BISON Some varieties of colour have been observed, although the instances are rare. A Missouri trader informed the members of Long's exploring party, that he had seen a greyish white bison, and a year- ling calf, that was distinguished by several white spots on the side, a star or blaze in the forehead, and white fore feet. Mr J. Doughty, an inter- preter to the expedition, saw in an Indian hut a very well prepared bison head with a star on the front. This was highly prized by the proprietor, who called it his great medicine, for, said he " the herds come every season to the vicinity to seek their white faced companion." In appearance the bison cow bears the same re- lation to the bull that is borne by the domestic cow to her mate. Her size is much smaller, and she has much less hair on the fore part of her body. The horns of the cow are much less than those of the bull, nor are they so much concealed by the hair. The cow is by no means destitute of beard, but though she possesses this conspicuous appen- dage, it is quite short when compared with that of her companion. From July to the latter part of December the bi- son cow continues fat. Their breeding season be- gins towards the latter part of July and continues until the beginning of September, and after this month the cows separate from the bulls in distinct herds and bring forth their calves in April. The calves rarely separate from the mother before they THE BISON. 7 are one year old, and cows are frequently seen ac- companied by calves of three seasons. The flesh of the bison is somewhat coarser in its fibre than that of the domestic ox, yet travellers are unanimous in considering it equally savoury as an article of food; we must, however, receive the opin- ions of travellers on this subject with some allow- ance for their peculiar situations, being frequently at a distance from all other food, and having their relish improved by the best of all possible recom- mendations in favour of the present viands—hunger. It is with reason, however, that the flesh is stated to be more agreeably sapid, as the grass upon which these animals feed is short, firm and nutritious, be- ing very different from the luxuriant and less sa- line grass produced on a more fertile soil. The fat of the bison is said to be far sweeter and richer, and generally preferable to that of the common ox. The observations made in relation to the bison's flesh, when compared with the flesh of the domestic ox, may be extended to almost all wild meat, which has a peculiar flavour and raciness that renders it decidedly more agreeable than that of tame animals, although the texture of the flesh may be much coarser and the fibre by no means as delicate. Of all the parts of the bison that are eaten, the hump is the most famed for its peculiar richness and delicacy; because when cooked it is said very much to resemble marrow. The Indian mode of cooking the hump is to cut it out from the vertebraB, after 8 THE BISON. which the spines of bone are taken out, the denuded portion is then covered with skin, which is finally sewed to the skin covering the hump. The hair is then singed and pulled off, and the whole mass is put in a hole dug in the earth for its reception, which has been previously heated by a strong fire in and over it the evening previous to the day on which it is to be eaten. It is then covered with cinders and earth about a foot deep, and a strong fire made over it. By the next day at noon it is fit for use. The tongues and marrow bones are also highly esteem- ed by the hunters. To preserve the flesh for future use the hunters and Indians cut it into thin slices and dry it in the open air, which is called jerking; this process is speedily finished, and a large stock of meat may thus be kept for a considerable length of time. From the dried flesh of the bison the fur traders of the north west prepare a food which is very valua- ble on account of the time it may be preserved with- out spoiling, though it will not appear very alluring to those who reside where provisions are obtained without difficulty. The dried bison's flesh is placed on skins and pounded with stones until sufficient- ly pulverized. It is then separated as much as pos- sible from impurities, and one-third of its weight of the melted tallow of the animal is poured over it. This substance is called pemmican, and being pack- ed firmly in bags of skin of a convenient size for transportation, may be kept for one year without THE BISON. g much difficulty, and with great care, perhaps two years. During the months of August and September the flesh of the bison bull is poor and disagreeably fla- voured ; they are however much more easily killed, as they are not so vigilant as the cows, and some- times allow the hunter to come up with them without much difficulty. Lewis and Clarke relate that once approaching a large herd, the bulls would scarcely move out of their way, and as they came near, the ani- mals would merely look at them for a moment, as at something new, and then quietly resume their graz- ing. The general appearance of the bison is by no means attractive or prepossessing, his huge and shapeless form being altogether devoid of grace and beauty. His gait is awkward and cumbrous, al- though his great strength enables him to run with very considerable speed over plains in summer, or in winter to plunge expeditiously through the snow. The sense of smelling is remarkably acute in this animal, and it is remarked by hunters that the odour of the white man is far more terrifying to them than that of the Indian. From the neighbourhood of white settlements they speedily disappear: this, however, is very justly accounted for by Mr Say, who attributes it to the impolitic and exterminating warfare which the white man wages against all un- subdued animals within his reach. As an exemplification of the peculiar strength of Vol. III.— B I0 THE BISON. their sense of smelling, we may here relate a circum- stance mentioned by Mr Say, in that valuable and highly interesting work, Long's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, to which we are under continual obligations. These we are the more happy to ac- knowledge, because we are well acquainted with the solicitude of the gentlemen composing that ex- pedition to diffuse, as widely as possible, the know- ledge of American Natural History. The exploring party were riding through a drea- ry and uninteresting country, which at that time was enlivened by vast numbers of bisons, who were moving, in countless thousands, in every direction. As the wind was blowing fresh from the south, the scent of the party was wafted directly across the river Platte, and through a distance of eight or ten miles, every step of its progress was distinctly mark- ed by the terror and consternation it produced among the bisons. The instant their atmosphere was infected by the tainted gale, they ran as violently as if closely pursued by mounted hunters, and instead of fleeing from the danger, they turned their heads towards the wind, eager to escape this terrifying odour. They dashed obliquely forwards towards the party, and plunging into the river, swam, waded, and ran with headlong violence, in several instances breaking through the expedition's line of march, which was immediately along the left branch of the Platte. One of the party, (Mr Say himself,) perceiving from the direction taken by the bull who led the extended THE BISON. 11 column, that he would emerge from the low river bottom at a point where the precipitous bank was deeply worn by much travelling, urged his horse rapidly forward, that he might reach this station in order to gain a nearer view of these interesting ani- mals. He had but just reached the spot when the formidable leader, bounding up the steep, gained the summit of the bank with his fore feet, and in this position suddenly halted from his full career, and fiercely glared at the horse which stood full in his path. The horse was panic-struck by this sudden apparition, trembled violently from fear, and would have wheeled and taken to flight, had not his rider exerted his utmost strength to restrain him ; he re- coiled, however, a few feet and sunk down upon his hams. The bison halted for a moment, but urged forward by the irresistible pressure of the moving column behind, he rushed onward by the half-sitting horse. The herd then came swiftly on, crowding up the narrow defile. The party had now reached the spot, and extended along a considerable distance ; the bisons ran in a confused manner, in va- rious directions, to gain the distant bluffs, and num- bers were compelled to pass through the line of march. This scene, added to the plunging and roaring of those who were yet crossing the river, produced a grand effect, that was heightened by the fire opened on them by the hunters. To the Indians and visiters of the western regions the bison is almost invaluable; we have mentioned 12 THE BISON. that they supply a large part of the food used by the natives, and covering to their tents and per- sons, while in many parts of the country there is no fuel to be obtained but the dried dung of this animal. The Indians always associate ideas of enjoyment with plenty of bison, and they fre- quently constitute the skull of one of them their "Great Medicine." They have dances and cere- monies that are observed previous to the com- mencement of their hunting. The herds of bison wander over the country in search of food, usually led by a bull most remarka- ble for strength and fierceness. While feeding, they are often scattered over a great extent of coun- try, but when they move in mass they form a dense, almost impenetrable column, which, once in mo- tion, is scarcely to be impeded. Their line of march is seldom interrupted even by considerable rivers, across which they swim without fear or hesitation, nearly in the order that they traverse the plains. When flying before their pursuers, it would be in vain for the foremost to halt or attempt to obstruct the progress of the main body, as the throng in the rear still rushing onward, the leaders must ad- vance, although destruction awaits the movement. The Indians take advantage of this circumstance to destroy great quantities of this favourite game, and, certainly, no mode could be resorted to more effec- tually destructive, nor could a more terrible devasta- tion be produced, than that of forcing a numerous THE BISON. 13 herd of these large animals torteap together from the brink of a dreadful precipice, upon a rocky and broken surface, a hundred feet below. When the Indians determine to destroy bison in this way, one of their swiftest footed and most active young men is selected, who is disguised in a bison skin, having the head, ears, and horns adjusted on his own head, so as to make the deception very complete, and thus accoutred, he stations himself between the bison herd and some of the precipices, that often extend for several miles along the rivers. The Indians surround the herd as nearly as possi- ble, when, at a given signal, they show themselves and rush forward with loud yells. The animals being alarmed, and seeing no way open but in the direction of the disguised Indian, run towards him, and he, taking to flight, dashes on to the precipice, where he suddenly secures himself in some previous- ly ascertained crevice. The foremost of the herd arrives at the brink—there is no possibility of retreat, no chance of escape : the foremost may for an instant shrink with terror, but the crowd behind, who are terrified by the approaching hunters, rush forward with increasing impetuosity, and the aggregated force hurls them successively into the gulf, where certain death awaits them. It is extremely fortunate that this sanguinary and wasteful method of killing bisons is not very frequently resorted to by the savages, or we might expect these animals in a few years to become al- 14 THE BISON. most entirely extinfct. The waste is not the only unpleasant circumstance consequent on it; the air for a long time after is filled with the horrible stench arising from the putrefying carcasses not consumed by the Indians after such an extensive and indiscriminate slaughter. For a very consi- derable time after such an event, the wolves and vultures feast sumptuously and fatten to tameness on the disgusting remains, becoming so gentle and fearless, as to allow themselves to be approached by the human species, and even to be knocked down with a stick, near places where such sacrifices of bison have been made. Lewis and Clarke bestowed the name of Slaughter River on one of the tributa- ries of the Mississippi, in consequence of the preci- pices along its sides having been used by the In- dians for this mode of killing the bison. A better and more common way of killing bison is that of attacking them on horseback. The In- dians, mounted and well armed with bows and ar- rows, encircle the herd and gradually drive them into a situation favourable to the employment of the horse. They then ride in and single out one, generally a female, and following her as closely as possible, wound her with arrows until the mortal blow is given, when they go,in pursuit of others until their quivers are exhausted. Should a wound- ed bison attack the hunter, he escapes by the agility of his horse, which is usually well trained for the purpose. In some parts^of the country, the hunter THE BISON. 15 is exposed to a considerable danger of falling, in consequence of the numerous holes made in the plains by the badger. When the hunting is ended and a sufficiency of game killed, the squaws come up from the rear to skin and dress the meat, a business in which they have acquired a great degree of dexterity, as they can, with very inferior instruments, butcher a bison with far more celerity and precision than the white hunters. If a bison is found dead, without an arrow in the body, or any particular mark attached, it becomes the property of the finder, so that a hunter may ex- pend his arrows to no purpose when they fall off, after wounding or fairly perforating the animal. That the Indians do frequently send their arrows through the body of this animal is well attested by a great number of witnesses. In Long's ex- pedition to the sources of St Peter's river, it is related that Wahnita, a distinguished chief of the Sioux, has been seen to drive his arrow through the body of one bison, and sufficiently deep into the body of a second to inflict a deadly wound. When the ice is breaking up on the rivers in the spring of thenar, the dry grass of the surrounding plains is set on fire, and the bison are tempted to cross the river in search of the young grass that im- mediately succeeds the burning of the old. In the attempt to cross, the bison is often insulated on a large cake of ice that floats down the river. The 16 THE BISON. savages select the most favourable points for attack, and as the bison approaches, the Indians leap with wonderful agility over the frozen ice to attack him, and as the animal is necessarily unsteady, and his footing very insecure on the ice, he soon receives his death wound and is drawn triumphantly to the shore. The Creek Indians make a bison-pound by fenc- ing a circular space of about a hundred yards in diameter. The entrance is banked up with snow sufficiently high to prevent the animals from re- treating after they have once entered. For about a mile on each side of the road leading to the pound stakes are driven into the ground at nearly equal distances of about twenty yards, which are intend- ed to look like men, and to deter the animals from endeavouring to break through the fence. Within fifty or sixty yards of the pound, branches of trees are placed between the stakes to screen the Indians who lie down behind them, to wait for the approach of the bison. The mounted hunters display the greatest dexterity in this sort of chase, as they are obliged to manoeuvre around the herd in the plains so as to urge them into the road-way, which is about a quarter of a mile broad. When this is ef- fected, the Indians raise loud shouts, and pressing closely on the animals, terrify them so much, that they rush heedlessly forwards towards the snare. When they have advanced as far as the men who are lying in ambush, they also show themselves in- ' THE BISON. 17 creasing the consternation of the bison by shouting violently and firing their guns. The affrighted animals have no alternative but to rush directly into the pound, where they are quickly despatched by guns or arrows. In the centre of one of these pounds there was a tree on which the Indians had hung strips of bison flesh and pieces of cloth, as tributary or grateful offerings to the Great Master of life. They occasionally place a man in the tree to sing to the presiding spirit as the bisons advance. He is obliged to remain there until all the animals that have entered the pound are killed.* The Omawhaw Indians hunt the bison in the fol- lowing manner. The hunters who are in advance 9 of the main body on the march, employ telegraphic signals from an elevated position, to convey a knowledge of their discoveries to the people. If they see bisons, they throw up their robes in a pe- culiar manner as a signal for a halt. The hunters then return as speedily as possible to camp, and are received with some ceremony on their approach. The chiefs and magicians are seated in front of the people, puffing smoke from their pipes, and thank- ing the Master of life with such expressions as " thanks Master of life, thank you Master of life, here is smoke, I am poor, hungry and want to eat." The hunters then draw near the chiefs and magi- cians, and in a low tone of voice inform them of * See Franklin's Exp. p. 112. Vol. III.—C 18 THE BISON. their discovery ; when questioned as to the number, they reply by holding up some small sticks in a horizontal direction, and compare one herd at a certain distance with this stick, and another with that, &c. An old man or crier then harangues the people, informing them of the company, exhorting the wo- men to keep a good heart, telling them that they have endured many hardships with fortitude, and that their present difficulties are ended, as on the morrow the men will go in pursuit of the bisons and bring them certainly a plenty of meat. Four or five resolute warriors are appointed at the council of chiefs, held the evening previous, to preserve order among the hunters on the following day. It is their business, with a whip or club, to punish those who misbehave, on the spot, or whose movements tend to frighten the game before all are ready, or previously to their arrival at the place whence they are to sally forth. The next morning all the men, not superannuated, depart at an early hour, generally mounted and armed with bows and arrows. The superintend- ants or' officers above mentioned accompany the swiftly moving cavalcade, on foot, armed with war clubs, the whole preceded by a footman bearing a pipe. When they come in sight of the herd the hunters talk kindly to their horses, using the en- dearing names of father, brother, uncle, &c, beg- ging them not to fear the bisons, but to run well THE BISON. 19 and keep close, taking care at the same time not to be gored by them. Having approached the herd as closely as they suppose the animal will permit without alarm, they halt, that the pipe bearer may perform the cere- mony of smoking, which is thought necessary to success. The pipe is lighted, and he remains a short time with his head inclined, and the stem of the pipe extended towards the herd. He then puffs the smoke towards the bisons, the heavens, the earth, and the cardinal points successively. These latter are distinguished by the terms sun-rise, sun-set, cold country, and warm country. This ceremony ended, the chief gives the order for starting. They immediately separate into two bands, which wheeling to the right and left, make a considerable circuit with a view to enclose the herd at a considerable interval between them. They then close upon the animals and every man endeavours to signalize himself by the number he can kill. It is now that the Indian exhibits all his skill in horsemanship and archery, and when the horse is going at full speed, the arrow is sent with a deadly aim and great velocity into the body of the animal behind the shoulder, where, should it not bury itself to a sufficient depth, he rides up and withdraws it from the side of the wounded and furious animal. He judges by the direction and depth of the wound whether it be mortal, and when the deadly blow is inflicted, he raises a triumphant shout to prevent 20 THE BISON. others from engaging in the pursuit, and dashes off to seek new objects for destruction, until his quiver is exhausted or the game has fled too far. Although there is an appearance of much confu- sion in this engagement, and the same animal re- ceives many arrows from different archers before he is mortally wounded or despatched, yet as every man knows his own arrows, and can estimate the consequences of the wounds he has inflicted few quarrels ever occur as to the right of property in the animal. A fleet horse well trained runs paral- lel with the bison at the proper distance, with the reins thrown on his neck, turns as he turns, and does not lessen his speed until the shoulder of the animal is presented, and the mortal wound has been given; then by inclining to one side the rider directs him towards another bison. Such horses are preserved exclusively for the chase, and are very rarely sub- jected to the labour of carrying burdens.* The effect of training on the Indian horses is well shown in a circumstance related by Lewis and Clarke. A sergeant had been sent forward with a number of horses, and while on his way, came up with a herd of bisons. As soon as the loose horses discovered the herd, they immediately set off in pursuit, and surrounded the bisons with almost as much skill as if they had been directed by riders At length the sergeant was obliged to send two men —---------------------------------^_____ Say, Long's EXp. to the Rocky Mountains, v. 2. THE BISON. 21 forward to drive the bisons from the route before they were able to proceed. The skins of the bison furnish the Indians and Whites with excellent robes, for bedding, clothing, and various purposes. These are most usually the skin of cows, as the hide of the bull is too thick and heavy to be prepared in the way prac- tised by the squaws, which is both difficult and te- dious. This consists in working the hide, moisten- ed with the brains of the animal, between the hands, until it is made perfectly supple, or till the thick texture of the skin is reduced to a porous and cel- lular substance. These robes form an excellent pro- tection from rain, when the woolly side is opposed to it, and against the cold when the woolly surface is worn next the skin. But when these robes are wet, or for a considerable time exposed to moisture, they are apt to spoil and become unpleasant, as the Indian mode of dressing has no other effect than to give a softness and a pliancy to the leather. On these robes the Indians frequently make drawings of their great battles and victories ; a great variety of such painted robes are to be seen in the Philadelphia Museum. The hair of the bison has been used in the manufacture of a coarse cloth, but this fabric has never been extensively employed. We have already adverted to the great numbers of these animals which live together. They have been seen in herds of three, four, and five thousand, blackening the plains as far as the eye could view. 22 THE BISON. Some travellers are of opinion that they have seen as many as eight or ten thousand in the same herd, but this is merely a conjecture. At night it is im- possible for persons to sleep near them who are un- accustomed to their noise, which, from the incessant lowing and roaring of the bulls, is said very much to resemble distant thunder. Although frequent battles take place between the bulls, as among do- mestic cattle, the habits of the bison are peaceful and inoffensive, seldom or never offering to attack man or other animals, unless outraged in the first instance. They sometimes, when wounded, turn on the aggressor, but it is only in the rutting season that any danger is to be apprehended from the fe- rocity and strength of the bison bull. At all other times, whether wounded or not, their efforts are exclusively directed towards effecting their escape from their pursuers, and at this time it does not appear that their rage is provoked particularly by an attack on themselves, but their unusual intre- pidity is indiscriminately directed against all sus- picious objects. We shall conclude this account of the bison, by in- troducing the remarks of John E. Calhoun, Esq.,* relative to the extent of country over which this animal formerly roved, and which it at present in- habits. * Long's Exp. to the source of the St Peter's ri p. 28. THE BISON. 23 The buffalo was formerly found throughout the whole territory of the United States, with the ex- ception of that part which lies east of Hudson's river and Lake Champlain, and of narrow strips of coast on the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. These were swampy and had probably low thick woods. That it did not exist on the Atlantic coast is rendered probable, from the circumstance that all the early writers whom Mr Calhoun has consulted on the subject, and they are numerous, do not mention them as existing then, but further back. Thomas Morton, one of the first settlers of New England, says, that the Indians (i have also made description of great heards of well growne beasts, that live about the parts of this lake," Erocoise, now Lake Ontario, u such as the christian world, (untile this discovery,) hath not bin made acquainted with. These beasts are of the bignesse of a cowe, their flesh being very good foode, their hides good le- ther, their fleeces very useful, being a kind of wolle, as fine almost as the wolle of the beaver, and the salvages do make garments thereof;" he adds, " It is tenne years since first the relation of these things came to the ears of the English."* We have in- troduced this quotation, partly with a view to show that the fineness of the buffalo wool, which has caused it within a few years to become an object of * New English Canaan, by Thomas Morton, Amsterdam, 1637, p. 98. # 24 THE BISON. commerce, was known as far back as Morton's time ; he compares it with that of the beaver, and with some truth ; we were shown lower down on Red river, hats that appeared to be of very good quality; they had been made in London with the wool of the buffalo. An acquaintance on the part of Europeans with the animal itself, can be referred to nearly a century before that: for in 1532, Guzman met with buffalo in the province of Cinaloa.* De Laet says, upon the authority of Gomara, when speaking of the buffalo in Quivira, that they are almost black, and seldom diversified with white spots.f In his history written subsequently to 1684, Hubbard does not enumerate this animal among those of New England. Purchas informs us, that in 1613 the adventurers discovered in Virginia, "a slow kinde of cattell as bigge as kine, which were good meate."$ From Lawson, we find that great plenty of buffaloes, elks, &c, existed near Cape Fear river and its tributaries ;§ and we know that some of those who first settled the Abbeville dis- trict in South Carolina, in 1756, found the buffalo there. De Soto's party, who traversed East Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansa Territory, and Louisiana, from 1539 to 1543, saw no buffaloe, * De Laet, Americas utriusque Descriptio, Lugd. Batav. anno 1633, lib. 6. cap. 6. t Idem, lib. 6, cap 17. J Purchas ut supra, p. 759. § Lawson ut supra, p. 48, 115, &c. THE BISON. 25 they were told that the animal was north of them ; however, they frequently met with buffalo hides, particularly when west of the Mississippi; and Du Pratz, who published in 1758, informs us that at that time the animal did not exist in lower Louisiana. We know however of one author, Bernard Romans, who wrote in 1774, and who speaks of the buf- falo as a benefit of nature bestowed upon Florida. There can be no doubt that the animal approached the Gulf of Mexico, near the Bay of St Bernard; for Alvar Nunez, about the year 1535, saw them not far from the coast; and Joater, one hundred and fifty years afterwards, saw them at the Bay of St Bernard. It is probable that this Bay is the lowest point of latitude at which this animal has been found east of the Rocky Mountains. There can be no doubt of their existence west of those moun- tains, though Father Venegas does not include them among the animals of California, and although they were not seen west of the mountains by Lewis and Clarke, nor mentioned by Harmon and Mackenzie as existing in New Caledonia, a country of immense extent, which is included between the Pacific Ocean, the Rocky Mountains, the territory of the United States, and the Russian possessions, on the north- west coast of America. Yet their existence at present on the Columbia appears to be well ascertained, and we are told that there is a tradition among the natives, that shortly before tht visit of our enter- prising explorers, destructive fires had raged over Vol. III.—D 26 THE BISON. the prairies and driven the buffalo east of the mountains. Mr Dougherty, the very able and intelligent sub-agent, who accompanied the expe- dition to the Rocky Mountains, and who communi- cated so much valuable matter to Mr Say, asserted that he had seen a few of them in the mountains, but not west of them. It is highly probable that the buffalo ranged on the western side of the Rocky Mountains, to as low a latitude as on the eastern side. De Laet says, on the authority of Henera, that they grazed as far south as the banks of the river Yaquimi.* In the same chapter this author states that Martin Perez had, in 1591, es- timated the province of Cinaloa, in which this river runs, to be three hundred leagues from the city of Mexico. This river is supposed to be the same, which, on Mr Tanner's map of North America, (Philadelphia, 1822,) is named Hiaqui, and situated between the 27th and 28th degrees of north lati- tude. Perhaps, however, it may be the Rio Gila which empties itself in latitude 32°. Although we may not be able to determine with precision the southern limit of the roamings of the buffalo west of the mountains, the fact of their existence there in great abundance, is amply settled by the testimony of De Laet, on the authority of Gomara, 1. 6, c. 17, and of Purchas, p. 778. Its limits to the north are * " Juxta Vaquimi fluminis ripas tauri vaccseque et grandes cervi pascuntur," ut supra lib. 6, cap. 6. THE BISON. 27 not easier to determine. In Hakluyt's collection we have an extract of a letter from Mr Anthonie Parkhurst, in 1578, in which he uses these words ; in the Island of Newfoundland there "are mightie beastes, like to camels in greatnesse, and their feete cloven. I did see them farre off, not able to dis- cerne them perfectly, but their steps showed that their feete were cloven and bigger than the feete of camels. I suppose them to be a kind of buffes, which I read to bee in the countrys adjacent, and very many in, the firme land."* In the same col- lection, p. 689, we find, in the account of Sir Humphrey Gilbert's voyages, which commenced in 1583, that there are said to be in Newfoundland, (i buttolfles, or a beast, it seemeth by the tract and foote, very large in the manner of an oxe." It may, however, be questioned whether these were not musk oxen, instead of the common buffalo or bison of our prairies. We have no authority of any weight which warrants us in admitting that the buffalo existed north of Lakes Ontario, Erie, &c. and east of Lake Superior. From what we know of the country between Nelson's River, Hudson's Bay, and the lower Lakes, including New South Wales and Upper Canada, we are inclined to believe that the buffalo never abounded there, if indeed any were * The principal navigations, voyages, and discoveries of the English nation, &c. by Richard Hakluyt, London, 1589. p. 676. 28 THE BISON. ever found north of the lakes. But west of Lake Winnepeck, we know that they are found as far north as the 62nd degree of north latitude. Capt. Franklin's party killed one on Salt river, about the 60th degree. Probably they are found all over the prairies which are bounded on the north by a line commencing at the point at which the 62nd degree meets the base of the Rocky Mountains, and running in a south easterly direction, to the southern extre- mity of Lake Winnepeck, which is but very little north of the 50th degree; on the Sardatchawan, buffalo are very abundant. It may be proper to mention here, that the small white buffalo, of which Mackenzie makes frequent mention, on the authority of the Indians, who told him that they lived in the mountains, is probably not the bison ; for Lewis and Clarke inform us, that the Indians designated by that name the mountain sheep.* It is probable that west of the Rocky Mountains the buffalo does not extend far north of the Columbia. At present it is scarcely seen east of the Mississippi, and south of the St Lawrence. Governor Cass's party found in 1819, buffalo on the east side of the Mississippi, above the falls of St Anthony: every year this ani- mal's rovings are restricted. In 1822, the limit of its wanderings down the St Peter, was Great Swan Lake (near Camp Crescent.) * Vol. ii. p. 325. V THE MUSK OX. 29 Species II.—The Musk Ox. Bos Moschatus; Gmel. Musk Ox: Penn. Quad. i. 31. Ibid, A ret. Zool. 3 vol. i. 8. Musk Ox: Hearjte, Journey, &c.8vo. 135. Bceuf Musque: Buff. Hist. Naturelle, Suppl. vi. Ovibos* Musque: Blainv. Nouv. Bullet, de la Soc. Philom. Musk Ox: Parry's Voyage, i. 202. [Called Mathek-Mongsoo, or Ugly Moose, by the Crees, Timing Mdk, by the Esquimaux.,] To civilized man, the extreme northern regions may appear cheerless and uninviting, because they are subjected to the almost unrelenting influ- * Mr De Blainville proposed to establish a new genus, to be called Ovibos or Sheep-ox, of which the Musk-ox is the first species. His generic distinctions are drawn from the resemblance between the outline of the front of the musk-ox and that of the sheep, and from the absence of the muzzle or smooth naked surface, between the nostrils, and upon the upper lip. This division, though as well founded as that which separates Copra from Ovis, we conceive to be alto- gether unnecessary, as the characters are not more than sufficient to establish a specific difference. In regard to the muzzle, nothing is said in the text of Parry's work, though it is very distinctly represented in the plate, which is said to be very accurate, and which we have copied; as the com- mon descriptions of the musk-ox have mostly been taken from dried skins, it is possible, that the absence of the muz- zle has been stated too hastily. 30 THE MUSK OX. ence of wintry skies. Yet we have already seen that they are the favourite resorts of multitudes of animals, varying in size, characters and habits, from the Lemming to the Moose. A species remains to be described, which, of these forbidding regions prefers the most barren and desolate parts, and is found in the greatest abundance in the rugged and scarcely accessible districts lying nearest the North Pole. This species, so far from being condemned to a life of extreme privation and suffering, appears to derive as much enjoyment from existence, as those which feed in more luxuriant pastures, or bask in the genial rays of a summer sun. In destining the musk ox to inhabit the domains of frost and storm, nature has paid especial atten- tion to its security against the effects of both ; first, by covering its body with a coat of long, dense hair,' and then, by the shortness of its limbs, avoiding the exposure that would result from a greater elevation of the trunk. The projection of the orbits of the eyes, which is very remarkable in this species, is thought by Parry to be intended to carry the eye clear of the large quantity of hair required to pre- serve the warmth of the head. Although some few items relative to this animal are to be gathered from the works of the recent ex- plorers of the Northern Regions, it is to Hearne that we are almost exclusively indebted for the Natural History of the musk ox, as we have already been for that of most of the animals inhabiting the THE MUSK OX. 31 same parts of this continent. This excellent and accurate observer travelled, in the years '69, '70, '71, and '72, and it is only to be regretted that he did not write down all he knew in relation to the northern animals. He appears to have frequently thought that what was so familiarly known to him, would not be of much interest to others, and has thus withheld knowledge that few individuals can have a similar opportunity of gaining. Notwith- standing this, he has anticipated all the recent ex- plorers in every essential observation. Hearne states that he has seen many herds of musk oxen in the high northern latitudes, during a single day's journey, and some of these herds con- tained from eighty to a hundred individuals, of which number a very small proportion were bulls, and it was quite uncommon to see more than two or three full grown males, even with the largest herds. The Indians had a notion that the males destroyed each other in combating for the females, atfd this idea is somewhat supported by the warlike disposition manifested by these animals during their sexual seasons. The bulls are then so jealous of every thing that approaches their favourites, that they will not only attack men or quadrupeds, but will run bellowing after ravens or other large birds that venture too near the cows. Musk oxen are found in the greatest numbers within the arctic circle; considerable herds are oc- casionally seen near the coast of Hudson's Bay, 32 THE MUSK OX. throughout the distance from Knapp's Bay to Wager Water. They have in a few instances been seen as low down as lat. 60° N. Capt. Parry's people killed some individuals on Melville Island, which were remarkably well fed and fat. They are not commonly found at a great distance from the woods, and when they feed on open grounds they prefer the most rocky and precipitous situations. Yet, notwithstanding their bulk and apparent un- wieldiness, they climb among the rocks with all the ease and agility of the goat, to which they are quite equal in sureness of foot. Their favourite food is grass, but when this is not to be had, they readily feed upon moss, the twigs of willow, or tender shoots of pine.* The appearance of the musk ox is singular and imposing, owing to the shortness of the limbs, its broad flattened crooked horns, and the long dense hair which envelopes the whole of its trunk, and hangs down nearly to the ground. When full * It is singular and well worthy of observation, that the dung of the musk ox, though so large an animal, is not lar- ger than, and, at the same time, is so nearly of the shape and colour of that of the Alpine Hare, that the difference is not easily distinguished, except by the Indians, though the quantity generally indicates the animal to which it belonged. In the country adjacent to the Coppermine river, long ridg- es of this dung, together with that of deer and other animals, were seen by Hearne. Similar appearances were observed by Parry on several of the North Georgian Islands. THE MUSK OX. 33 grown, the musk ox is ten hands and a half high, according to Parry, and as large as the generality, or at least the middling size of English black cat- tle ; but their legs, though large, are not so long; nor is their tail longer than that of a bear, and like the tail of that animal it always bends downwards and inwards, so that it is entirely hid by the long hair of the rump and hind quarters. The hunch on their shoulders is not large, being little more in propor- tion than that of a deer. Their hair is in some parts very long, particularly on the belly, sides and hind quarters; but the longest hair about them, par- ticularly the bulls, is under the throat, extending from the chin to the lower part of the chest, between the forelegs; it there hangs down like a horse's mane inverted, and is full as long.* * " Mr Dragge says in his voyage, vol. 2, p. 260, that the musk ox is lower than a deer, but larger as to belly and quarters; which is very far from the truth. They are of the size I have here described them, and the Indians always estimate the flesh of a full grown cow to be equal to three deer. I am sorry also to be obliged to contradict my friend Mr Graham, who says that the flesh of this animal is car- ried on sledges to Prince of Wales's Fort, to the amount of three or four thousand pounds annually. To the amount of near one thousand pounds may have been purchased from the natives in some particular years, but it more frequently happens that not an ounce is brought one year out of five, and in fact, all that has ever been carried to Prince of Wales's Fort, has most assuredly been killed out of a herd Vol. III.—E 34 THE MUSK OX. The winter coat of the musk ox is formed of two sorts of hair, which is generally of a brownish red, and in some places of a blackish brown colour; the external being long, coarse, and straight, and the internal, fine, soft and woolly. The outer hair is so long that it hides the greater part of the limbs, caus- ing them to look disproportionately short. As the summer comes on, the short woolly hair is gradually shed, but the summers are so short in these high latitudes, that the woolly coat commences growing almost immediately after the old coat is shed, so that the entire winter coat is completed by the return of the cold weather. From the shortness of the limbs and the weight of the body, it might be inferred that the musk ox could not run with any speed; but it is stated by Parry that although they run in a hobbling sort of canter that makes them appear as if every now and then about to fall, yet the slowest of these musk oxen can far outstrip a man. When disturbed and hunt- ed, they frequently tore up the ground with their horns, and turned round to look at their pursuers, but never attempted to make an attack. The month of August is the season in which the musk bulls are most disposed to combat, as they ofl^^ f°Und Whhin a ™de-te distance onh t^Tlll' T^tWithin & hundred miles '. which is only thought a step by an Indian." Hearne, 136 /The fort he mentions was destroyed by the French in ,782.)( THE MUSK OX. 35 then fight furiously with each other for the females, and are jealous of the approach of every thing, as already stated. The cows calve about the end of May or the beginning of June; the calves are fre- quently whitish, but more commonly marked by a white patch or saddle upon the back. The musk oxen killed on Melville island during Parry's visit, were very fat, and their flesh, espe- cially the heart, although highly scented with musk, was considered very good food. When cut up it had all the appearance of beef for the market. Hearne says that the flesh of the musk ox does not at all re- semble, that of the bison, (Bos Americanus) but is more like that of the moose, and the fat is of a clear white tinged with light azure. The young cows and calves furnish a very palatable beef, but that of the old bulls is so intolerably musky, as to be exces- sively disagreeable. A knife used in cutting up such meat becomes so strongly scented with this substance, as to require much washing and scouring before it is removed.* Musk ox flesh when dried, is considered by hunters and Indians to be very good. il In most parts of Hudson's Bay it is known by the name of Kew-hagon, but amongst the North- ern Indians it is called Achees." The weight of * Moschusisteglandulis juxta praeputium positis efformari videtur; ibi materia fusca, concreta, fortissime moschi odo- rans inventa est. 36 THE MUSK OX. the musk ox, according to Parry, is about 700 lbs. that of the head and hide is 130 lbs. The horns of the musk ox are employed for va- rious purposes by the Indians and Esquimaux, es- pecially for making cups and spoons. From the long hair growing on the neck and chest, the Esquimaux make their musquitoe wigs, to defend their faces from those troublesome insects. The hide of the musk ox makes good soles for shoes, and is much used by the natives for this purpose. During the months of August and September the musk oxen extend their migrations to the North Georgian and other islands bordering the northern shores of the continent. By the first of October they have all left the islands and moved towards the south. By Franklin's Expedition, they were not seen lower than 66° N. though, as we have be- fore stated from Hearne, they are occasionally seen as low as 60°. CHAPTER II. Order VIII. Cete ; Cetaceous Animals. Cetaceous animals, in general appearance and in mode of living, bear a considerable resemblance to fish, with which they are popularly confounded; but by all the details of their conformation, their man- ner of respiration and the nourishment of their off- spring, they are entitled to rank in the first class of animals, although at the inferior extremity of the scale. In these creatures the head is joined to the trunk by so short and thick a neck, as to appear continuous with the body, and this large neck is in the greater number capable of very little, if any motion, owing to the consolidation of several of the slender cervi- cal vertebraB. The trunk of the body gradually de- creases until it terminates in a thick tail, which ends in a horizontal cartilaginous fin, and when used by the animal in effecting its forward motion, is moved up and down, never laterally. The anterior extremities or arms, although in all respects analogous to those of the higher orders of animals, have the bones shortened, flattened and en- 38 CETACEOUS ANIMALS. veloped in a tendinous membrane, so as to be effec- tually converted into fins. The posterior extremi- ties or limbs are entirely wanting. The brain is large and well developed. The bone containing the organ of hearing, or internal ear, is separated from the rest of the head, being attached thereto by ligament alone. The orifice of the external ear is very small and destitute of exter- nal appendage. The teats, two in number, are either pectoral or abdominal. CHAPTER III. Family I. Sirenia ; Herbivorous Cetacea. This family is distinguished especially by the ve- getable diet of the animals belonging to it, which is indicated by their flat grinding teeth. The head is not very large, and has always a short and obtuse snout, at the extremity of which the external open- ings of the nostrils are situated, notwithstanding they pass through the bones of the head from the superior part. The mouth is garnished with long bristles or whiskers, and the teats are situated upon the chest. The anterior extremities, though compressed, are still sufficiently free to allow them to be used for the purpose of carrying any thing by holding it against the body, the young, for instance, being thus held by the mother. The tail is not very large, but is pow- erful. These animals swim with great facility, and as they are able to raise the anterior parts from the water, so as to form a considerable angle with the trunk, it is considered as highly probable that the various fables of sirens, tritons and mermaids may 40 HERBIVOROUS CETACEA. have originated from an imperfect observation of their actions. It must be admitted that the members of this fa- mily present little in their general appearance to excite attention, unless it be their huge and almost shapeless bodies; but theirinternal structure, actions and habitudes, afford very ample scope for interesting observations and philosophical inquiry; as it would not be easy, from any previous knowledge, to be- lieve that merely herbivorous animals would be found inhabiting the ocean, conformed in all re- spects, so as closely to approach in external appear- ance to fish, and yet in all the characters of teeth, mode of feeding and digestive organs, to bear a very marked resemblance to herbivorous land quadru- peds. CHAPTER IV. Genus I.—Lamantin ; Manatus, C. GENERIC CHARACTERS. The head is small and conical, with a broad snout and rather small mouth ; the eyes are placed high up between the extremity of the snout and the open- ings leading to the ears, which are very small and hardly visible. The spine is composed of seven very short cervical, seventeen dorsal, two lumbar, and twenty-two caudal vertebraB. The ribs are seventeen in number. In addition to the shoulder blade, arm and forearm, the lamantins have all the wrist or carpal bones, with the single exception of the pisiform, the phalanges of the thumb are wanting, and the corresponding metacarpal bone terminates in a point. All the other digits have three pha- langes. The stomach has several cavities, the ccBcum two branches, and the colon is very large ; in all which circumstances they strongly resemble the pachydermatous land animals, along with which Vol. III.—F 42 THE LAMANTIN. they have been considered by some naturalists.* The surface of the body is entirely destitute of hair. Dental Syste?n. 18 Upper J 2 Incisive. 1 16 Molar. 16 Lower < 16 Molar. In the upper jaw, in young individuals,, twc small pointed incisive teeth are found, somewhat similar to those of the morse. There are no ca- nines. The eight molars resemble each other; they have a general square form, and all present two transverse eminences, formed of three tubercles, separated from each other by a deep groove: they all have three divergent roots, one internal, the other two external. They increase gradually, hut almost imperceptibly, in size from the first to the last. In the lower jaw neither incisive nor canine teeth are ever found, and the molars resemble those of the upper jaw, except in having a spur posteri- orly, or a third eminence much smaller than the others. These teeth have two roots, one in front, * Blainville at first arranged them with the unguligrada, and subsequently with the gravigrada, as the Elephants, &c. See Ranzani, Elm. di Zoologia, ii. parte iii. p. 670. [-1 CO h,l. /. Fit/. '1 I'vJtT suit vmi' of The s8/or enim Graeci dicunt quod arduum est, et quam altissima voce elevatum.—Gesnerus. t Herodotus,«» T»c Kx«o«f.—This story did not escape the biting irony of Lucian, whose talent for ridicule has rarely been surpassed. He has a dialogue between Neptune and the very dolphin who bore Arion in safety to Tsenarus, and makes him repeat Herodotus's story, as "having heard the whole of it while swimming round the ship." Lucian also accounts for the fabled attachment of the Dolphin to the human race, by making this one remind Neptune that they were changed from men to dolphins by Bacchus. Ovid relates the transformation in his third book of Metamorpho- ses, where Bacchus himself, in the semblance of his compa- nion Acaetes, is the speaker:— "At Lybis obstantes dum vult obvertere remos, In spatium resilire manus breve vidit; et illas Jam non esse manus jam primas posse vocari. Alter ad intortos cupiens dare brachia funes Corpore desiluit;falcata novissima Cauda est Qualia dimidise sinuantur cornua lunse." OF THE DOLPHIN. 75 The sagacious and judicious Plutarch not only re- peats this story, but introduces Gorgias in the con- versation of the seven wise men, as saying that he knew Arion before he landed from off the dolphin's back, because he had on the dress he had worn at the public games. Aulus Gellius repeats the story from Herodotus, as it was originally told, and Ovid perpetuates it in verse.* " Numerous examples, (says Aristotle,) of the gentleness and mild manners of dolphins are relat- ed. About Tarentum, Caria and other places, they tell of their love and regard for boys. A dolphin having been wounded near Caria, a troop of dol- phins, it is said, gathered in the port, until the fish- * Ille metu vacuus, mortem non deprecor inquit; Sed liceat sumta pauca referre lyra. Dant veniam, ridentque moram: capit ille coronam, Quae possit crines, Phoebe, decere tuos. Induerat Tyrio bis tinctam murice pallam ; Reddidit icta suos pollice chorda sonos ; Flebilibus veluti numeris canentia dura Trajectus pennatempora cantatolor. Protinus in medias ornatus desilit undas, Spargitur impulsa caerula puppis aqua. Inde, fide majus tergo Delphina recurvo Se memorant oneri supposuisse novo. Ille sedens citharamque tenet, pretiumque vehendi Cantat, et zequoreas carmine mulcet aquas. Di pia facta vident: astris Delphina recepit Jupiter, et stellas jussit habere novem, 76 FABULOUS HISTORY erman set his prisoner at liberty, when they all went off. A large dolphin likewise always ac- companies them as a guard. A troop of dolphins of larger and smaller size were once seen, and, at no great distance behind them, two dolphins ap- peared, bearing up the body of a young dead dolphin on their backs, by swimming beneath it, as if in- duced by pity lest it should be devoured by some beast.* (Elian relates in the third chapter of his eighth book, that Ceranus, the Parian, purchased the free- dom of some dolphins caught by Byzantine fisher- men, and afterwards sailed towards his own coun- try in a Milesian vessel of fifty oars. His vessel was cast away in the strait of Paros, but these dol- phins which he had set at liberty, came in time to save their deliverer, and landed him on a promonto- ry, subsequently called Cerania, in honour of him ; at his death, he requested to be interred at that place; thither the dolphins went to pay their benefactor merited funeral honours. Leonidas of Byzantium narrates (in (Elian's 2d book, ch. 6.) that a man and his wife of Ple- roselene, taught a dolphin to eat from their hands, and accustomed their son to be very familiar with the animal, which very regularly frequented the har- bour of the town, appearing to regard it as his home. When old enough to take care of himself, he sought * Aristoteles de Animalibus Ilistorias, lib. ix. cap. 35. OF THE DOLPHIN. 77 his subsistence at sea, and brought a share of his success in fishing daily to his friends. The pa- rents had given the same name to the dolphin and their son. When the boy sat upon a projecting rock, and called his friend, the dolphin immediately hastened towards him, testifying his pleasure by his frolicsome movements. This connection be- tween the boy and dolphin, occasioned a great deal of rumour, aud was very profitable to the parents.* The younger Pliny, however, exceeds all these wonders, by the following recital. A scholar, named Hippus, in the time of Augustus, who attended a class at Puzzoli, was in the habit of going daily along the shores of Baia, and about mid-day, of stopping and throwing pieces of bread into the water to a dolphin. If the youth called the dolphin at any time, he would immediately come, and after eating his bread, would offer his back for the use of his friend, who would mount thereon, and he would swim with him to Puzzoli, and afterwards carry him back in the same manner. This friendly intercourse was maintained for several years; but * There is nothing improbable in the dolphin's obedience to a certain call from one accustomed to supply it with food. Animals of very inferior rank to the dolphin may be taught as much. The improbability is in the gratitude of the ani- mal, evinced by the offer of part of his fish. 78 FABULOUS HISTORY the boy dying, the afflicted animal came frequently to the accustomed place, remained there sorrowful and wretched, and finally died of grief!* The reasons for believing the present species to be the dolphin of the poets, are the following: first, it is the only dolphin which is known habitually to fre- quent the coasts, or to visit the deep bays which extend far inland. The sea-swine (meerschwein, marsouin, Delphinus Phocsena,) have no beak ex- tending beyond the arched part of the head, and as they are seldom seen except in the full sea, are not likely to have afforded much opportunity to the an- cients for examination. That they were well ac- quainted with our dolphin, we have the most ex- cellent evidence, in the figure of the one which accompanies the statue of the Venus de Medicis. Although the usual poetical license has been taken by the sculptor, of placing the animal resting on the underjaw and neck, with its body and tail raised in fanciful undulations, from the great re- semblance of the head and beak to those of the dol- phin we have been examining, in conjunction with the circumstances of its habits, numbers and fami- liarity with the bays and rivers of almost all the world, we are persuaded of the identity of the spe- cies frequenting our waters, with that to which all the ancient fables relate. * See Pliny, lib. ix, cap. viii. OF THE DOLPHIN. 79 W*e Tiave thought it unnecessary to bring the fabu- lous history of the dolphin down to a later period than that of Pliny, as all the subsequent stories appear to be variations of the same. It is impos- sible, however, not to feel sorry that some modern works of great authority and usefulness, continue to interweave so much of what is barely possible, with the little that is attested in regard to this and other animals, as to give an air of fable to the whole. The following from the " Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle," may serve as an instance. ci The dolphins form among themselves a sort of society; they defend those of the troop that may be attacked, and utter frightful cries, in order to induce the aggressors to release them. The little dolphins are placed in the middle of the troop; the large and most robust at its head : they all preserve their or- der like a battalion of soldiers; they swim each in their ranks; the females compose the rear guard, and urge on the stragglers."* This is not the only passage of the kind that might be selected from the article on the dolphin, in the same work. If the time shall ever arrive, when the facts of natural history are given, without admixture with fable, the world will be more rapid- ly and satisfactorily advanced in improvement than can possibly be hoped for, so long as imagination * Virey op. citato 80 FABULOUS HISTORY, &c. is permitted to usurp the place of truth. The latter, like perfect beauty, is unsusceptible of adornment, and is always more admirable in its simplicity than any fiction, however ingeniously contrived or gorge- ously ornamented. CHAPTER VIII. Genus Narwal ; Monodon ; L. GENERIC CHARACTERS. General form of the body similar to that of the dolphin; a single spiracle or blowhole on the supe- rior part of the head ; mouth small; no teeth within the mouth, one long spiral tusk growing from the intermaxillary bone; dorsal crest or spine, instead of a fin. The eyes and ears small.* Species I.—The Narwal. Monodon Monoceros; L. Monodon Narwhal: Fabricius, Faun. Greenl. 29. Narwhal oder einhorn: Anderson, Island. 225. Narwhal: Bonnat. Ce"tol.: 10. Narwhal Vulgaire: Lacep. Hist. Nat. ties Cetaces, 142. Narwhal, or Unicorn of the Whalers: Scoresby, Arct. Regions, i .486. Ibid. Voyage to Greenland, 129. [Commonly called Sea- Unicorn.,] The narwal is an inhabitant of the arctic seas, and consequently is seldom seen, except by the ad- * "Penis vaginatus; mammae lactantes binae et genitalia feminarum sub abdomine; pone ilia anus."—Bonnat. Vol. III.—L £2 THE NARWAL. venturous mariners, who seek the spoils of the whale amid the perils of polar ice and storms. Fortunately, however, some few of these, incited by hopes of gain to visit those forbidding regions, have been well qualified to make accurate scientific obser- vations, and owing to their zealous industry, we have actually less to desire concerning the animals found in the icy seas, than in relation to many others, al- most within the reach of every observer. Among the individuals to whom science is most deeply indebted, the name of Scoresby must ever stand conspicuous ; few persons have contributed so largely to the advancement of natural history, while engaged in ordinary commercial pursuits, and still fewer have effected the object so well under any circumstances. His mind appears to have been one of that rare, but amiable compositions, in which genius, talent, energy and sound common sense, are blended in such just proportion, as to be capable of operating at all times, and upon all materials, to the greatest possible advantage. From his valuable researches we shall derive almost all the observa- tions which remain to be made upon the cetaceous animals, claiming for ourselves no other merit than that of having collected and arranged them. The vertebral column of the narwal is about twelve feet long; there are seven cervical, twelve dorsal, and thirty-five lumbar and caudal vertebrae, being in all fifty-four; twelve of which enter the tail and extend to within an inch of its extremity. The THE NARWAL. 83 spinal marrow runs through all the vertebrae, from the head of the fortieth, but does not penetrate the forty-first. The spinous processes diminish in length from the fifteenth lumbar vertebrae, until it is scarcely perceptible at the nineteenth. Large pro- cesses, attached to two adjoining vertebrae, and aris- ing from the inferior surface of the bodies of the vertebrae, commence between the thirtieth and thir- ty-first, and terminate between the forty-second and forty-third. There are twelve ribs, six true and six false, on each side, which are slender for the size of the animal. The sternum is heart-shaped, with the broadest part anteriorly. Two of the false ribs, on each side, are joined by cartilages to the sixth true rib, the others are detached. The narwal, when full grown, measures from thirteen to sixteen feet in length, exclusive of the tusk, and at the thickest part, which is two feet be- hind the fins, the circumference is about eight or nine feet. The part of the body anterior to the fins and head are paraboloid al; the middle portion of body is almost cylindrical, the posterior portion, to within three or four feet of the tail, is somewhat coni- cal ; thence, a ridge commencing both at the back and belly, the section becomes first an ellipse, and then a rhombus at the junction of the tail. The perpen- dicular diameter, at a distance of twelve or fourteen inches from the tail, is about one foot, the transverse diameter is about seven inches. The back and belly ridges, run half way or more across the tail; S4 THE NARWAL. the edges of the tail run in the same way along the body, and form ridges on the sides of the rump. Posterior to a very slight elevation at the spiracle, the outline of the back forms a regular curve; the belly appears to rise, or is contracted near the vent, and expands to an obvious bump, about two feet an- terior to the genitals. The back appears depressed and flat three or four feet posterior to the neck. The head forms about one seventh of the whole length of the animal, being small, blunt, and round. The mouth is small, and incapable of much exten- sion, having a wedge-shaped underlip. The eyes are only one inch in their largest diameter, and are placed on a line with the opening of the mouth, at about thirteen inches from the snout. The opening of the ear, situated six inches behind the eye, on the same horizontal line, is of the diameter of a small knitting needle. The skull of the narwal, like the dolphin, &c. is concave above, and sends forth a large, flat, wedge shaped process in front, which affords sockets for the tusks. There is upon this process a bed of fat extendnig horizontally to the thickness of ten or twelve inches, and eight or ten perpendicularly. To this fat the roundness of the head is owing, and according to the quantity present, is the prominence of the front, and the va- riation of the facial angle, from 60 to 90 degrees. The spiracle or blowhole is situated immediately over the eyes, and is a single semicircular opening about three and a half inches in diameter and one THE NARWAL. 85 inch and a half in length. It expands immediate- ly within the skin into a sac or air vessel, six or eight inches wide, and extending laterally and for- ward into two cavities, one on each side; the ex- tremities of which are about twelve inches apart. These contain some mucous matter; the lining of the whole sac is a thin, greenish, black membrane. At the posterior extremity of the sac the blowholes are seen, divided there into two distinct canals in the skull. They are closed by a valve resem- bling a hare lip, one lobe of which covers each canal. This valve in the narwal does not, (as in the whale), enter the canal in the skull, but merely closes down upon it. It, however, effectually ex- cludes the sea-water from the lungs, whatever be the pressure ; it becomes, in fact, firmer and closer, in proportion as the weight of water is increased. The valve is about six inches wide, and is closed and opened by two radiated muscles. It is detach- ed from the skull beneath, about six inches to- wards the snout. In consequence of this separa- tion, the valve is sufficiently free, and has room enough in the adjoining sac to be drawn upward and forward, so as to expose the breathing canals, or falling upon them like the valve of a pump-box, to secure them against the entrance of water. The two lobes of the valve are connected by a fleshy septum, slightly attached to the cartilaginous part of the bony partition between the blow-holes in the skull. 86 V THE NARWAL. The fins are twelve or fourteen inches long, and six or eight broad, and placed at one-fifth of the length of the animal from the snout. Where fixed to the body, the fin is elliptical, its longest axis lying longitudinally, so that when the fin is elevated to the swimming position, it is horizontal, the point or tip is bent upwards or towards the back, conse- quently, when the fin is in the swimming position, it is concave above and convex below, the thick edge forward and the thin edge towards the tail. The fin being horizontal, is evidently designed to bal- ance the animal, while the tail, which is from fifteen to twenty inches long, and three or four feet broad, is the chief organ of motion, and is also used in turning. That the fins are not commonly used either for swimming or turning, appears probable from repeated observations made with a telescope from the mast head. The fins were always seen steadily extended, and when the animal changed its direction, the tail was bent suddenly and oblique- ly to one side, and then slowly brought back, so that the progressive motion and change of direction were produced by the same effort; the fin at the same time remaining motionless. The general colour of the young narwal is black- ish gray on the back, variegated with numerous darker spots running into each other and forming a dusky black surface, paler and more open spots of gray on a white ground at the sides, disappearing altogether about the middle of the belly. In the THE NARWAL. 87 elder animals, the ground is wholly white, or yel- lowish white, with dark gray or blackish spots of different degrees of intensity. These spots are of a roundish or oblong form : on the back, where they seldom exceed two inches in diameter, they are the darkest and most crowded together, yet with intervals of pure white among them. On the sides, the spots are fainter, smaller and more open. On the belly they are extremely faint and few, and being in con- siderable surfaces, are not distinguishable. A close patch of brownish black, without any white, is often found on the upper part of the neck, just behind the blowhole : the external part of the fins is also gene- rally black at the edges, but grayish about the mid- dle. The superior side of the tail is also blackish around the edges: but in the middle, gray with black curvilinear streaks, on a white ground, forming semicircular figures on each lobe. The inferior sur- faces of the fins and tail are similar to the upper, only much paler coloured, the middle of the fins being white, and of the tail a pale gray. The sucker narwals are almost uniformly of a bluish gray or slate colour. Very old individuals be- come almost white. The skin of the narwal resembles that of the whale, except that it is thinner. The cuticle is about as thick as writing paper; the rete mucosum three-eighths or three-tenths of an inch thick ; the cutis thin, but strong and compact on the outer side. 88 THE NARWAL We may next consider the most remarkable pe- culiarity which distinguishes this animal; the long spiral tooth or tusk, which has obtained for it the name of Unicorn. This tusk grows from the left side of the head, and is sometimes nine or ten feet long. Egede, in his description of Greenland, de- scribes this tusk as being fourteen or fifteen feet long. It projects from the inferior part of the up- per jaw, and points forward and slightly down- ward, being parallel in direction to the roof of the mouth. It is spirally striated from right to left, nearly straight, and tapers to a round blunt point. It is of a yellowish white colour, and consists of a compact kind of ivory, and is usually hollow from the base to within a few inches of the point. A tusk of the average length, five feet, is about two inch- es and a half in diameter at the base ; one inch and three-fourths in the middle, and about three-eighths within an inch of the end. In such a tusk there are five or six turns of the spiral, extending from the base to within six or seven inches of the point. Beyond this the end is not striated, but smooth, clean, and white; the striated part is usually gray and dirty. The tusk is commonly covered with a greasy blackish brown incrustation over the great- est part of its surface; the under part and a few inches of the point are kept quite clear and polish- ed by some use which prevents the adherence ot the matter just mentioned. A horn externally of seven feet in length, is bedded about fifteen or THE NARWAL. 89 sixteen inches in the skull. All the male narwals, killed by Scoresby, excepting one, had tusks of from three to seven feet in length, projecting from the left side of the head. In addition to this external tusk, peculiar to the male,* there is another on the right side of the head about nine inches long, imbedded in the skull. In females as well as in young males, in which the tooth does not appear externally, the rudiments of two tusks are generally found in the upper jaw. These are entirely solid, and are placed back in the substance of the skull, about six inches from its most prominent part. These rudiments of tusks are eight or nine inches long, both in male and female; in the former they are smooth, tapering, and terminate at the root with an oblique truncation ; in the latter they have an extremely rough surface, and finish at the base with a large irregular knob plac- ed towards one side, which gives the tusks some- thing of the form of pocket-pistols. Two or three instances have occurred of male narwals having * Scoresby, in his Greenland voyage, killed a female nar- wal, having an external horn, four feet three inches long; twelve inches of which were imbedded in the skull. It had also a milk tusk, as is usual, nine inches long, which was of a conical form and oliquely truncated at the thicker end, and without the knob found in many of the milk tusks. The horn was on the left side of the head, and the spiral was dextrorsal. Vol. III.—M 90 THE NARWAL. been taken, which had two external tusks. This is a rare circumstance, and it rarely or never occurs that an external horn is found on the right side. What purpose this singular and formidable tusk can serve, is not easily to be determined. It is not essential to the defence of the animal, or else the young and a vast majority of the females would be left unprotected. It has been suggested, that it is employed by the animal in piercing thin ice for the convenience of rising to respire, and that it is oc- casionally employed in killing prey. But nothing has yet been observed, sufficient to enable us to draw any positive conclusion on the subject. The food of the narwal appears to be principally molluscous animals, such as the cuttle-fish, &c, but judging by the materials occasionally found in their stomachs, more substantial food is frequently de- voured by them. In the stomach of one examined by Scoresby, besides the beaks and other remains of cuttle-fish, there was part of the spine ofa.pleu- ronectes, or flat-fish, probably a small turbot; frag- ments of the spine of a gadus; the backbone of a rata, with nearly a whole skate, raia-balis, which was two feet three inches long, and one foot eight inches broad. That an animal having no teeth ex- cept the external tusk, a small mouth, and a tongue incapable of protrusion, should be able to swallow a fish nearly three times as great as the width of its own mouth, is really surprising. Scoresby in- clines to the opinion, that the skates had been THE NARWAL. gj pierced with the horn, and killed before they were swallowed by the narwal, as it is otherwise very difficult to conceive how an animal so large as the skate, would allow itself to be sucked down the throat of a smooth-mouthed animal, having no means of crushing or detaining it. The narwal is a harmless animal, of an active disposition, and swims with considerable swiftness. When at the surface, for the sake of respiring, these animals frequently lie motionless for several mi- nutes, with their heads and backs just appearing above water. Occasionally, numerous small herds are seen together, each herd generally consisting of individuals of the same sex. The narwal is sometimes shot with a rifle, kept for that purpose in the crow's-nest of the whaling- ships. When harpooned, the narwal dives as swiftly, but not so deeply as the common whale. It commonly descends about two hundred fathoms, and then returns to the surface, where it is soon killed with lances. The whole body of the narwal is covered by a layer of blubber immediately beneath the skin, which is from two to three inches thick, and yields a considerable quantity of fine oil. The Green- landers and Esquimaux employ the whole animal to various uses. The flesh is eaten, the oil burned in their lamps, the intestines wrought into lines and dresses, and the tusks are used for spears, &c. It 92 THE NARWAL. is said that the king of Denmark has a magnificent and valuable throne made entirely of narwal tusks. The following are the dimensions of a male nar- wal, killed by Scoresby near Spitzbergen in 1817. Feet Inches, Length, exclusive of the tusk, - - - 15 0 ------from the snout to the eyes, - - 1 1 § --------------------------fins, - - 3 1 ---------------------'----backridge, 6 0 --------------------------vent, - 9 9 Circumference 4± inches from snout, -35 -------------at the eyes and blowhole, 5 3§ -------------just before the fins, - - 7 5 -------------at the forepart of backridge, 8 5 -------------at the vent, - - - - 5 8 Tusk, length externally, ----- 5 0§ -----------diameter at base, ... 0 2| Blowhole, length 1| inch, breadth, - 0 3| Tail do 14 do - - - 3 Of Fins do 13 do - - - 0 7| Heart weighed 11 pounds. Temperature of the blood an hour after death, 97°. A fine specimen of the tusk or horn of the nar- wal may be seen in the Philadelphia Museum. CHAPTER X. Section II.—Size of the head disproportioned to that of the body. Genus Cachalot; Physeter: L. GENERIC CHARACTERS. The head in these animals is of huge size, form- ing a third, or even half of their entire length. The upper is broad, high, destitute of corneous fringes and teeth, or having short teeth, almost en- tirely concealed within the gums. The lower jaw is elongated, narrow, and armed with thick conical teeth, which fit into corresponding depressions in the upper jaw. The spiracles are placed at or near the extremity of the superior part of the snout. There is a dorsal fin in some species, in others mere- ly an eminence. In the superior parts of the head there are large cavities, circumscribed by cartilagi- nous partitions, and communicating with different parts of the body by particular canals. These are filled with an oil that becomes fixed and crystallized on cooling, and is the well known substance sper- maceti. The teeth are ovoid and recurved; externally they somewhat resemble ivory, internally they are softer, and ash coloured. They are commonly about six 94 THE SPERMACETI CACHALOT. inches long, and three in circumference at the base, and are thought to become larger and more recurv- ed as the animal grows. The upper jaw has as many alveolar depressions as there are teeth in the lower, but what is most remarkable, is, that in the interstices separating these depressions, are to be found about twenty small teeth, horizontally placed, and raised about one-twentieth of an inch above the gum. These teeth are acutely pointed, and present aflat, even and oblique surface, filling the intervals separating the alveoles. This oblique surface is all that is seen of them, the other parts of these teeth being imbedded in the gum.* Species I.— The Spermaceti Cachalot. Physeter Macrocephalus. Le Grand Cachalot: Bonnat. Cetol. 12. Cachalot Macrocephale: Desm. Mam. 524, p. 790. Cachalot Macrocephale: Lacep. Hist. Nat. des Cetaces, pi. 10. The spermaceti cachalot is found in greatest abundance in the Pacific Ocean, where large num- bers of them are annually killed by the American and other whalers, for the sake of their oil and sper- maceti. The spermaceti cachalot is gregarious, and herds * See Desmarest's Mammalogie; Bonnaterre Cetologie; Sibbald Phalainologia nova. THE SPERMACETI CACHALOT. 95 are frequently seen containing two hundred or more individuals. Such herds, with the exception of two or three old males, are composed of females, who appear to be under the direction of the males. The males are distinguished by the whalers as bulls; the females they call cows. The bulls attack with great violence, and inflict dreadful injuries upon other males of the species which attempt to join their herd. These animals live separately, while young, accord- ing to their age and sex. The young and half grown males are found by themselves ; the old cows protect the young females. When the young bulls attain sufficient strength, they venture into a herd under the protection of some old bulls, an intrusion that is said to produce a severe contest, by which they succeed in gaining admittance to, or are driven from the herd. The mode of attacking these animals is as fol- lows:—Whenever a number of them are seen, four boats, each provided with two or three lines, two harpoons, four lances, and a crew of six men, proceed in pursuit, and, if possible, each boat strikes or " fastens to" a distinct animal, and each crew kill their own. When engaged in distant pursuit, the harpooner generally steers the boat, and in such cases the proper boat steerer occasionally strikes, but the harpooner mostly kills it. If one cacha- lot of a herd is struck, it commonly takes the lead and is followed by the rest. The one which is struck seldom descends far under water, but gene- 96 THE SPERMACETI CACHALOT. rally swims off with great rapidity, stopping after a short course, so that the boat can be drawn up to it by the line, or be rowed sufficiently near to lance it. In the agonies of death, the struggles of the animal are truly tremendous, and the surface of the ocean is lashed into foam by the motions of the fins and tail. Tall jets of blood are discharged from the blowholes, which show that the wounds have taken mortal effect, and seeing this, the boats are kept aloof, lest they should be dashed to pieces by the violent efforts of the victim. When a herd is attacked in this way, ten or twelve of the number are killed; those which arc only wounded are rarely captured. After the ca- chalot is killed, the boats tow it to the side of the ship, and if the weather be fine, and other objects of chase in view, they are again sent to the attack. The separation of the blubber from the animal, or "flensing," is sometimes done differently from the manner used in the polar whaling. A strap of blubber is cut in a spiral direction, and being raised by tackles, turns the cachalot round as on an axis, until nearly all the blubber is stripped off. The material contained within the head, consisting of spermaceti mixed with oil, being in a fluid state while warm, is taken out of large cachalots in buckets, while the animal remains in the water; but in smaller ones, the part of the head containing the spermaceti, is hoisted upon deck before the cavity is opened. THE SPERMACETI CACHALOT. 97 The substances taken from the head, congealing as soon as cold, the compound is thrown in its crude state into casks, and is purified at the end of the voyage on shore. The oil is reduced from the blubber short- ly after it is on board, in " try works," with which the ships engaged in this business are always pro- vided. There are two coppers in the try works, placed side by side, near the fore hatch. These, with their furnaces and casing of brickwork, occupy a space of five or six feet in length, by eight or nine in breadth, (or fore and aft—and athwart ship,) and four or five feet in height. The cavity of the brick arches sustaining the coppers and furnaces, forms a water cistern, so that while the fire is burning, the deck is secured from injury by the changing of the water in the cistern twice or thrice in every watch. As the oil is extracted it is thrown into coolers, whence, after about twenty-four hours, it is trans- ferred to casks. At first the coppers are heat- ed with wood, but afterwards the cracklings or frit- ters of the blubber, which still contain some oil, are employed as fuel, and produce a fierce fire. About three tons of oil are commonly obtained from a large cachalot of this species; from one to two tons are procured from a small one. A cargo, produced from one hundred cachalots, may be from 150 to 200 tons of oil, besides the spermaceti, &c. Vol. III.—N CHAPTER IX. Genus—Whale; Balsena; L. GENERIC CHARACTERS. Whales possess no true teeth; the upper jaw resembles the keel of a vessel, or the roof of a house reversed. It is furnished on each side with trans- verse horny layers of a peculiar substance, called Baleen, which at the edges are split into long slender fringes. The spiracles or blowholes are separated, and placed about the middle of the su- perior part of the head. Some species have a dor- sal fin; others merely a prominence. Species I.—The Whale. Balsena Mysticetus; L. «*x«/v*; Arist. An. 1. c. v. III. c. xvi. Mucti*»toc, ib. III. c. x. Ml. Hist. an. v. e. iv. Hvalfisch ; Egede, Greenland, 48. La Baleine Franche ; Bonnat. Cetol. 1. The Common or Greenland Whale ; Scoresby, Arct. Regions, i. 449. In attempting to describe a creature so gigantic and surpassing in strength as the whale, we deeply feel the want jpf expression suitable to our pur- pose, and vainly endeavour to remove this difficulty 'A iq 7. 0 ^ •c 3 — THE WHALE. 99 by resorting to comparisons scarcely less inade- quate, or conveying at best but vague and unsatis^ factory ideas. The sublime in magnitude among organized and animated beings, the whale is adapted in all his attributes to the fathomless and illimitable waters he is destined to inhabit: con- trasted with other animals, his strength as far tran- scends their greatest exertions, as the irresistible heavings of the mighty deep exceed the harmless rippling of a sylvan stream. It is only by successive approaches and detailed examination that we can arrive at a proper conception of this animal, and, therefore, the statements which are freest from at- tempts to emulate by ambitious style the magnitude of the subject, will lead us to the most satisfactory conclusions. Having never personally enjoyed opportunities of studying the whale in his native floods, and hav- ing derived all that we know in relation thereto from Scoresby, we should deem it injustice to the reader to give this account in any other language than that of the original. We do this without reluctance, as our object is to convey the most accurate know- ledge, rather than to produce a work exclusively of our own composition, and because we believe that where an original observer is competent to ex- press what he has seen, his remarks must have a force and value far greater than can be imparted by another, however great may be his command of language, or his felicity of expression. All that !00 THE WHALE.. follows in relation to the whale, is selected from the different works of the accurate and philosophical Scoresby. The Whale. This valuable and interesting animal, generally called the whale by way of eminence, is the object of our most important commerce to the polar seas—is productive of more oil than any other of the cetacea, and being less active, slower in its motion, and more timid than any other of the kind, of similar or near- ly similar magnitude, is more easily captured. Large as the size of the whale certainly is, it has been much over-rated; for such is the avidity with which the human mind receives communications of the marvellous, and such the interest attached to those researches which describe any remote and extraordi- nary production of nature, that the judgment of the traveller receives a bias, which, in case of doubt, in- duces him to fix upon that extreme point in his opinion, which is calculated to afford the greatest surprise and interest. Hence, if he perceives an animal remarkable for its minuteness, he is inclined to compare it with something still more minute: if remarkable for its bigness, with something fully larger. When the animal inhabits an element where he cannot examine it, or is seen under any circumstances which prevent the possibility of his determining its dimensions, his decision will cer- tainly be in that extreme which excites the most THE WHALE. 101 interest. Thus a mistake in the size of the whale would easily be made; and there is every proba- bility of such an error having been committed two or three centuries back, from which period some of our present dimensions have been derived, when we know that whales were usually viewed with superstitious dread, and their magnitude and powers in consequence, highly exaggerated. Besides, er- rors of this kind having a tendency to increase rather than to correct one another, from the circum- stance of each writer on the subject being influenced by a similar bias, the most gross and extravagant results are at length obtained. Thus authors, we find, of the first respectability in the present day, give a length of 80 or 100 feet, or upwards, to the mysticetus, and remark with unqualified assertion, that when the captures were less frequent, and the animals had sufficient time to attain their full growth, specimens were found of 150 to 200 feet in length, or even longer; and some ancient naturalists, indeed, have gone so far, as to assert that whales had been seen of above 900 feet in length. But whales in the present day are by no means so bulky. Of 332 individuals, in the capture of which I have been personally concerned, no one I believe exceeded 60 feet in length; and the largest I ever measured was 58 feet from one extremity to the other, being one of the longest, to appearance, which I ever saw. An uncommon whale, which was caught near Spitsbergen, about twenty years ago, the whalebone of which measured almost fifteen feet, 102 THE WHALE. was not, I understand, so much as 70 feet in length; and the longest actual measurement that I have met with, or heard of, is given by Sir Charles Giesecke, who informs us, that in the Spring of 1813, a whale was killed at Godharn of the length of 67 feet; these however are very uncommon instances. I therefore conceive that 60 feet may be considered as the size of the largest animals of this species, and 65 feet in length as a magnitude which very rarely occurs. Yet I believe that whales now occur of as large dimensions as at any former period, since the com- mencement of the whale fishery. This point I en- deavoured to prove, from various historical records, in a paper read before the Wernerian Society, on the 19th day of December 1818, and since inserted in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, No. 1. p. 83. In this paper I brought forward the authorities of Zorgdrager, the writer of an account of the whale fishery, and one of the early superintendants of the Dutch northern fisheries, together with opinions or remarks of Captain Anderson, Gray, Heley, and others, who were among the earliest of the English whalers, which satisfactorily prove, that the average and largest produce of a whale in oil was not greater near two hundred years ago than it is at the present time ; and to these are added the testi- monies of Captain Jenkinson and Edge, as to the length of the whale, which likewise corresponds pretty nearly with the measurements I have myself made. THE WHALE. 103 Jenkinson, in his voyage to Russia, performed in 1557, saw a number of whales, some of which, by estimation, were 60 feet long, and are described as being "very monstrous." Edge, who was one of the Russia Company's chief and earliest whale fishers, having been ten years to Spitsbergen, prior to the year 1625, calls the whale {i a sea beaste of hughe bigness, about 65 foot long, and 35 foot thick," having whalebone ten or eleven feet long, (a common size at present), and yielding about 100 hogsheads of oil; and in a descriptive plate, accom- panying Captain Edge's paper on the fishery, pub- lished by Purchas in 1625, is a sketch of a whale, with this remark subjoined—"a whale is ordinari- ly about 60 foot long." Hence, I conceive, we may satisfactorily conclude that whales of as large size are found now, as at any former period, since the Spitsbergen fishery was discovered; and I may also remark, that where any respectable authority affords actual measurement ex- ceeding 70 feet, it will always be found that the speci- men referred to was not one of the mysticetus kind, but of B. Physalis or the B. Musculus animals, which considerably exceed in length any of the common whales that I have either heard of, or met with. When fully grown, therefore, the length of the whale may be stated as varying from 50 to 65, and rarely, if ever, reaching 70 feet; and its greatest circumference from 30 to 40 feet. It is thickest a little behind the fins, or in the middle, between 104 THE WHALE. the anterior and posterior extremes of the animal; from whence it gradually tapers, in a conical form, towards the tail, and slightly towards the head. Its form is cylindrical from the neck to within ten feet of the tail, beyond which it be- comes somewhat quadrangular, the greatest ridge being upwards, or on the back, and running back- ward nearly across the middle of the tail. The head has somewhat of a triangular shape. The under part, the arched outline of which is given by the jaw bones, is flat, and measures 16 to 20 feet in length, and 10 to 12 feet in breadth. The lips, extending 15 or 20 feet in length, and five or six in height, and forming the cavity of the mouth, are attached to the under jaw, and rise from the jaw- bones, at an angle of about 80 degrees, having the appearance, when viewed in front, of the letter U. The upper jaw, including the crown bone or skull, is bent down at the extremity, so as to shut the front and upper parts of the cavity of the mouth, and is overlapped by the lips in a squamous manner at the sides. When the mouth is open, it presents a cavity as large as a room, and capable of containing a mer- chant ship's jolly boat, full of men, being six or eight feet wide, ten or twelve feet high (in front), and fifteen or sixteen feet long. The fins, two in number, are placed between one third and two-fifths of the animal from the snout, and about two feet behind the angle of the mouth; THE WHALE. 105 they are from seven to nine feet in length, and four or five in breadth. The part by which they are attached to the body is somewhat elliptical, and about two feet in diameter; the side which strikes the water is nearly flat. The articulation being spherical, the fins are capable of motion in any direction; but, from the tension of the flesh and skin below, they cannot be raised above the horizontal position. Hence, the account given by some natu- ralists, that the whale supports its young by its fin on its back, must be erroneous. The fins after death are always hard and stiff; but in the living animal, it is presumed, from the nature of the internal structure, that they are caprole of considerable flexion. The whale has no dorsal fin. The tail, comprising in a single surface 80 or 100 square feet, is a formidable instrument of motion and defence. Its length is only five or six feet; but its width is from 18 to 24 or 26 feet. Its position is horizontal. In its form it is flat and semilunar; indented in the middle; the two lobes somewhat pointed, and turned a little backward. Its motions are rapid and universal; its strength immense. The eyes are situated in the sides of the head, about a foot, obliquely, above and behind the angle of the mouth. They are remarkably small, in pro- portion to the bulk of the animal's body, being little larger than those of an ox. The whale has no ex- ternal ear; nor can any orifice for the admission of sound be discovered until the skin is removed. Vol. III.—0 106 THE WHALE. On the most elevated part of the head, about six- teen feet from the anterior extremity of the jaw, are situated two blow-holes, or spiracles, consisting of two longitudinal apertures, six or eight inches in length. These are the proper nostrils of the whale; a moist vapour, mixed with mucus, is discharged from them when the animal breathes; but no water accompanies it, unless an expiration of the breath be made under the surface. The mouth, in place of teeth, contains two ex- tensive rows of fins or whalebone, which are sus- pended from the sides of the crown bone. These series of fins are generally curved longitudinally, although they are sometimes str^ht, and give an arched form to the roof of the mouth. They are covered immediately by the lips attached to the lower jaw, and enclose the tongue between their lower extremities, each series, or " side of bone," as the whale fishers term it, consists of upward of 300 laminse;* the longest are near the middle, from whence they gradually diminish away to nothing at each extremity; fifteen feet is the greatest length of the whalebone; but ten or eleven feet is the ave- rage size, and thirteen feet is a magnitude seldom met with. The greatest breadth, which is at the gum, is ten or twelve inches. The laminae, com- posing the two series of bone, are ranged side by side two-thirds of an inch apart, (thickness of the * In a very small whale the number was 316 or 320. THE WHALE. 107 blade included,) and resemble a frame of saws in a saw-mill; the interior edges are covered with a fringe of hair, and the exterior edges of every blade, excepting a few at each extremity of the series, is curved and flattened down, so as to present a smooth surface to the lips. In some whales a curious hol- low on one side, and ridge on the other, occurs in many of the central blades of whalebone, at regular intervals of six or seven inches. May not this irregularity, like the rings in the horn of the ox, which they resemble, afford an intimation of the age of the whale? if so, twice the number of running feet in the longest lamina of whalebone, in the head of a whale not full grown, would represent its age in years. In the youngest whales, called suckers, the whalebone is only a few inches long; when the length reaches six feet or upwards, the whale is said to be size. The colour of the whalebone is brown- ish black, or bluish black. In some animals it is striped longitudinally with white. When newly cleaned, the surface exhibits a fine play of colour. A large whale sometimes affords a ton and a half of whalebone. If the "sample blade," that is, the largest lamina in the series, weigh seven pounds, the whole produce may be estimated at a ton ; and so on in proportion. The whalebone is inserted into the crown bone, in a sort of rabbit. All the blades in the same series are connected together by the gum, in which the thick ends are inserted. This substance (the gums) is white, fibrous, tender, and 108 THE WHALE. tasteless; it cuts like cheese. It has the appearance of the interior or kernel of the cocoa nut. The tongue occupies a large portion of the cavity of the mouth: and the arch, formed by the whalebone, is ca- pable of protrusion, being fixed from root to lip, to the fat extending between the jaw bones. A slight beard, consisting of a few short scattered white hairs, surmounts the anterior extremity of both jaws. The throat is remarkably straight. Two paps in the female afford the means of rear- ing the young. They are situated on the abdomen, one on each side of the pudendum, and are two feet apart. They appear not to be capable of protrusion, beyond the length of a few inches. In the dead ani- mal they are always found retracted. The milk of a whale resembles that of a quadru- ped in its appearance. It is said to be rich and well flavoured. The vent is about six inches be- hind the pudendum of the female ; but in the male, it is further back. The colour of the mysticetus is velvet black, gray, (composed of dots of blackish brown on a white ground,) and white with a tinge of yellow. The back, most of the upper jaw, and part of the lower jaw, together with the fins and tail, are black, The tongue, the lower part of the under jaw and lips, sometimes a little of the upper jaw, at the ex- tremity, and a portion of the belly are white; and the eye-lids, the junction of the tail with the body, THE WHALE. 109 a portion in the axillse of the fins, &c. are gray. I have seen whales that were all over piebald. The older animals contain the most gray and white; under size whales are altogether of a bluish black, and suckers of pale bluish or bluish gray colour. The skin of the body is slightly furrowed, like the water-lines on coarse laid paper. On the tail- fins, &c. it is smooth. The cuticle, or that part of the skin which can be pulled off in sheets, after it has been a little dried in the air, or particularly in frost, is not thicker than parchment. The rete mu- cosum in adults is about three-fourths of an inch in thickness over most parts of the body; in suckers nearly two inches; but on the under side of the fins, on the inside of the lips, and on the surface of the tongue, it is much thinner. This part of the integu- ments is generally of the same colour throughout its thickness. The fibres, of which it is composed, are perpendicular to the surface of the body : under this lies the true skin, which is white and tough. As it imperceptibly becomes impregnated with oil, and passes gradually into the form of blubber, its real thickness cannot easily be stated. The most com- pact part, perhaps, may be a quarter of an inch thick. Immediately beneath the skin lies the blubber or fat, encompassing the whole body of the animal, together with the fins and tail. Its colour is yellow- ish white, yellow or red. In the very young ani- mals, it is always yellowish white. In some old 10 THE WHALE animals it resembles in colour the substance of the salmon. It swims in water. Its thickness all round the body is eight or ten or twenty inches, va- rying in different parts as well as in different indi- viduals. The lips are composed almost entirely of blubber, and yield from one to two tons of pure oil each. The tongue is chiefly composed of a soft kind of fat, that affords less oil than any other blub- ber ; in the centre of the tongue, and towards the root, the fat is intermixed with fibres of a muscular substance. The under jaw, excepting the two jaw bones, consists almost wholly of fat, and the crown bone possesses a considerable coating of it; the fins are principally blubber, tendons and bones, and the tail possesses a thin stratum of blubber. The oil appears to be retained in the blubber in minute cells, connected together by a strong reticulated combina- tion of tendinous fibres. These fibres being condens- ed at the surface, appear to form the substance of the skin. The oil is expelled when heated, and in a great measure discharges itself out of the henks, whenever putrefaction in the fibrous parts of the blubber takes place. The blubber and the whale- bone are the parts of the whale to which the atten- tion of the fisher is directed. The flesh and bones, excepting occasionally the jaw bone, are rejected. The blubber, in its fresh state, is without any un- pleasant smell, and it is not until after the termi- nation of the voyage, when the cargo is unstowed, that a Greenland ship becomes disagreeable. THE WHALE. HI Four tons of blubber, by measure, generally af- fords three tons of oil,* but the blubber of a sucker contains a very small portion. Whales have been caught that afforded nearly thirty tons of pure oil, and whales yielding twenty tons of oil are by no means numerous. The quantity of oil yielded by a whale generally bears a certain proportion to the length of its longest blade of whalebone. The average quantity is expressed in the follow- ing table, -f- Length of whalebone 1 2 3 4 5 0 7 8 9 10 11 12 in feet. Oil yielded in tons. u 2£ n H 4 5 «4 «i 11 13* 17 21 Though this statement, on the average, be exceed- ingly near the truth, yet exceptions sometimes oc- cur. A whale of 2| feet bone, for instance, has been known to produce near ten tons of oil, and another of twelve feet bone only nine tons. Such instances, however, are very uncommon. * The ton or tun of oil is 252 gallons, wine measure; it weighs, at temperature 60°, 1933lbs. 12oz. I4dr. avoirdupoise. t This table is somewhat different from that given in Wernerian Memoirs, (vol. i. p. 582,) an increased number of observations having enabled me to improve it. 112 THE WHALE. A stout whale of sixty feet in length is of the enormous weight of seventy tons ; the blubber weighs about thirty tons, the bones of the head, whalebone, fins and tail eight or ten; carcass thirty or thirty-two. The flesh of the young whale is of a red colour; and when cleared of fat, broiled and seasoned with pepper and salt, does not eat unlike coarse beef; that of the old whale approaches to black, and is exceedingly coarse. An immense bed of muscles, surrounding the body, is appropriated chiefly to the movements of the tail. The tail consists princi- pally of two reticulated beds of sinewy fibres, com- pactly interwroven, and containing very little oil. In the central bed, the fibres run in all directions; in the other, which encompasses the central one in a thinner stratum, they are arranged in regular order. These substances are extensively used, particularly in Holland, in the manufacture of glue. Most of the bones of the whale are very po- rous, and contain large quantities of fine oil. The jaw bones, which measure twenty to twenty-five feet in length, are often taken care of, princi- pally on account of the oil that drains out of them when they come into a warm climate. When ex- hausted of oil, they readily swim in water. The ex- ternal surface of the most porous bones is compact and hard ; the ribs are pretty nearly solid ; but the crown bone is almost as much honey-combed as the jaw bones. The number of ribs, according to Sir Charles Giesecke, is thirteen on each side. The THE WHALE. 113 bones of the fins are analogous, both in proportion and number, to those of the fingers of the human hand. From this^eculiarity of structure, the fins have been denominated by Dr Fleming "swim- ming paws." The posterior extremity of the whale, however, is a real tail, the termination of the spine, or os coccygis, running through the middle of it, al- most to the edge. As the whale is flensed while afloat, with nearly the whole of the carcass under water, few opportu- nities of examining its anatomical structure occur. The smallest animals of the species, mere cubs or "suckers," may indeed be hoisted on deck ; and it is in such cases only that I have had a chance of inspecting them entirely out of the water. One of these having been taken, the head was hoisted aboard in a mass, and the body, when stripped of the fat, was so small as to be quite within the power of the tackles. Some new facts, respecting the anatomy of the whale, arose out of the investigation of this, and another of the species, killed in the summer of 1821, which I shall attempt to describe. The follow- ing measurements and weight, it must be observed, all refer to a sucking whale, that at the time of cap- ture was under maternal protection, but the other details in general may be considered as applying to the whole species of the Balsena Mysticetus. This whale, though a " sucker," was nineteen feet in length, and fourteen feet five inches in cir- cumference, at the thickest part of the body. The Vol. III.—P 114 THE WHALE. external skin, consisting of cuticle and rete mucosum, was on the body an inch and three-quarters thick, being about twice the thickness«of the same mem- branes in a full grown animal. The blubber, on an average, was five inches in thickness. The largest of the whalebone measured only twelve inches; about one half of which was imbedded in the gum. The external part of these fringes, not exceeding six inches in length, did not seem sufficient to enable the little whale yet to catch, by filtration out of the sea, the shrimps and other insects on which the animal, in a more advanced stage, is dependant for its nourish- ment : maternal assistance and protection, therefore, appeared to have been essential for its support. The muscles about the neck, appropriated to the movements of the jaws, formed a bed, if extended, of nearly five feet broad, and a foot thick. The cen- tral part of the diaphragm was two inches in thick- ness. The two principal arteries in the neck (the carotid) were so large as to admit a man's hand and arm. The brain lies in a small cavity in the upper and back part of the skull. The cavity included with- in the pia mater, exclusive of the foramen magnum, measured only eight inches by five. The upper part of the brain lies very near the surface of the skull. The convolutions of the cortical substance he in beautiful fringed folds, attached to the medullary portion, which is white, as in the human brain. The general appearance of the brain is not unlike that of the other mammalia, but its smallness is remarka- THE WHALE. H5 ble. The quantity of brain in a human subject of 140 or 160 pounds weight is, according to Haller, 4 pounds; in this whale, of 11,200 pounds, or se- venty times the weight of a man, the brain was only 3 pounds 12 ounces. According to Cuvier, the brain in man varies from one thirty-first to one twenty-second part of his weighty* whereas, in this animal, the proportion of brain was only a three- thousandth part. The heart, which is of an oblong form, much com- pressed, resembles in colour and substance the heart of an ox. The breadth of it, in this specimen, was 29 inches, the height 12, the thickness 9, and the weight of it 64 lbs. Diameter of the aorta about 6 inches. Large as the whale is in bulk, the throat is but narrow. In tWf animal the diameter of the oesopha- gus, when fully distended, was scarcely 2| inches, with difficulty admitting my hand. The epiglottis is a beautiful valve, formed almost like the termination of the proboscis of an elephant. Though the larynx in the whale has a free commu- nication with the mouth, as in quadrupeds, yet the mysticetus does not appear to have any voice. In * Lemons d'Anat. Comp. ii. 149. The proportion the human brain bears to the weight of the body, appears to be, on an average, less than is stated by Cuvier. According to Haller, the proportion in a man of 160 lbs. weight is one fortieth; in a man of 140lbs., one thirty-fifth, in a child six years old, one twenty-second. JIG THE WHALE. other cetacea, however, this is not always the case; some of the dolphins, in particular, having been heard to emit a shrill sound, which in the beluga may be heard before the animal arises to the surface of the water.* The external blowholes or spiracles were, in the sucking whale^pfour inches in length; in the full grown animal they form two curved slits, above ten inches long. In passing downward through the blubber, the blowholes, which at the surface are nearly longitudinal, as in the annexed figure, a, a, Posterior. Anterior. twist into a semicircular and tra^verse position, in the form of the dotted line b, b, tn?n penetrating the skull, they proceed backward and downward in two conical parallel canals, until they open near the back of the under pfrt of the skull, where they inosculate and form a single membranous sac, with- in a few inches of the epiglottis. The first impres- sion of each blowhole on the upper part of the skull, is marked as in the following cut, (representing the upper surface of the anterior part of the whale's skull, the skin and fat being removed,) by an ob- long cavity, b, b, * Captain Parry's Voyage for the discovery of a North West passage, p. 35. THE WHALE. U7 which is the seat of a muscular substance attached by its anterior extremity to the surface of the skull, and also attached, by its posterior and inferior ex- tremity, to the interior of the skull, at some depth in the blowing canal, a, a. The part of this mus- cle that penetrates the bony canal is of a conical form, the apex downward, or within, represented at b, in the annexed figure of a vertical section of the skull; Anterior portion. so that, when this interior portion contracts, the muscular cone b, is drawn tight into the orifice, and completely closes the breathing canal a, a; while, on the other hand, the action of the external part of the muscles draws the conical plug forward and up- ward, and affords a free passage for the air in respi- ration. This beautiful structure it is, (aided, per- haps, by the epiglottis,) that enables the animaj, Hg THE WHALE. under the immense pressure to which it is sometimes exposed, to exclude the sea-water from its lungs. This pressure, under some depths to which the whale is known to descend, is upwards of a ton upon every square inch ; yet, so far from the water being forced down the spiracles, the enormous load serves only more effectually to press down and close the valves that defend the passages to the lungs. The whale has no external ear, and the opening of the passage to this organ is so small as not to be easily discovered. In the sucking whale, it was only one-sixth of an inch in diameter. An elegant contrivance appears in the meatus auditorius exter- nus for protecting the ear against pressure from with- out. It consists of a little plug, like the end of the finger, inserted into a corresponding cavity, in the midst of the canal, by a slight motion of which the opening can either be effectually shut for the exclu- sion of the sea-water, or opened for the admission of sound. In the sucking whale, the skull or crown bone was six feet in length, from the anterior extremity to the condyles. In a full grown animal, in which the whalebone was ten feet four inches, the length of the skull, measured along the upper and convex side of the curve, was twenty feet eight inches, the cavity on the crown of the same, occupied by the muscular valve of the blowholes, was 14 inches wide, and 24 inches long. THE WHALE. H9 The whale being very nearly of the same specific gravity as sea-water, (some few individuals sinking, and others barely floating when dead), the weight may be calculated with considerable precision. The body of the whale may be divided into three segments, forming tolerably regular geometric solids. First; the head a parabolic conoid, which in the sucking whale is four feet in diameter, and five and a half feet in height; its solid contents about thirty- four and a half cubic feet. Secondly; the middle segment, extending from the head to the thickest part of the body : this is a frustum of a cone in the sucking whale, three feet in length, and four to five feet in diameter, producing a solid content of forty-eight cubic feet. Thirdly; the posterior seg- ment, extending from the greatest circumference to the tail: this segment is a paraboloid or parabolic conoid, with its smaller end truncated. Its length in the sucking whale is eight feet; its diameters one and*five feet; and its solid contents eighty-one and a half cubic feet. And to these products may be add- ed about ten cubic feet, the estimated bulk of the fins and tail, which make an amount of 147 cubic feet: this sum, divided by 35, the number of cubic feet of sea-water in the Greenland ocean, in a ton weight, gives the weight of the animal five tons within a cubic foot. One of the largest mysticete, of sixty feet in length, the head twenty feet in length, by twelve feet in diameter, the middle section six feet by thir- 1^0 THE WHALE. teen diameter, the third section twenty-six feet in length, by twelve and two feet diameter, will appear (if calculated the same way with an allowance of five tons for the fins and tail) to be of the pro- digious weight of 114 tons! But as the last sec- tion is somewhat more slender than the body to which it is referred, this calculation may be a little in excess. The largest animals of this species may, however, I conceive, be safely stated at a hundred tons in weight; and an ordinary full grown animal at se- venty tons. The most useful and ennobling view of natural history is, unquestionably, that which gives us the most exalted conceptions of the wisdom, power, and goodness of the Creator. And the branch of this science, that is in the highest degree calculated to assist us in tracing "the works of Nature up to Nature's God," is probably the physiology of ani- mals. In every genus of animals we discover pe- culiar marks of adaptation for their economy or mode of life, and an endless variety of inimitable contrivances for accomplishing this adaptation. The whale, which is a mammiferous animal, and closely allied, in its anatomical structure, to the class of quadrupeds, affords in the modification of the parts and principles of land animals, for apply- ing them to a tribe inhabiting the sea, a great num- ber of those striking displays of wisdom and power, the very contemplation of which is calculated to THE WHALE. 121 elevate, in no inconsiderable degree, our concep- tions of the Great Supreme. The mysticetus feeds on the smallest insects; its capacious mouth, with the vast fringes of whalebone, which is a most ad- mirable filter, enables it to receive some tons of water at a mouthful, and to separate every substance from it, of the size of a pin's head and upwards. The physalis feeds on herrings, mackerel and other fishes of a similar kind; its whalebone therefore is shorter, stronger, and less compact than that of the mysticetus, and the filter formed by it less perfect. As the whale must rise to the surface of the sea to breathe, its tail is placed horizontally, to enable it to ascend and descend more quickly; and its nos- trils, or blowholes, instead of being placed at the snout, are generally on the most elevated part of the head, that they may be readily lifted clear of the water. When the whale descends to the depths of the ocean, it becomes exposed to an enormous pressure from the superincumbent water. This pressure is sufficient to force the water through the pores of the hardest wood; yet it is effectually resisted by the skin of the whale, though it is remarkably soft and flexible. To exclude the water from the lungs, which would occasion suffocation if admitted, the blowholes are defended by the peculiar valves that have been already described. The variety discovered in the structure of whales, is by no means one of the least interesting parts of Vol. III.—Q 122 THE WHALE. their physiology. In other classes of animals, whose habits are similar, we often find that each organ is the same as the corresponding one, in al- most all the species of the same genus, or even of the same order; excepting when their peculiar habits, or necessities, require a modification of the general structure or principle. But in whales, as if it were intended not only to exhibit the match- less wisdom of the Creator, but to show that his resources are unlimited, the structure of the breath- ing canals is varied in the different genera of ce- taceous animals, and a number of contrivances, alike extraordinary, equally beautiful, and equally effi- cient, are adapted for performing the same office. S3 P 3 2 3 re p =r n x S9 >-• ft ^ en 3- g- 3 « 3. o p CO 3 v» 3 O O ■ & * » hJ Q- CO "* *<| <-f °* a* IT H 3- 3- SL P < 3 ST ** © o 3 cl 03 3 a Q* O? ££<<-<< a> 3 &•& p ft c o Q p w p co a |5 s > 0Q 0 " ww 3*3 i-. 2 2 S. *"*■ 3 CP M» v. 3 C*5 TABLE of the comparative dimensions of six Mysticete, from my own measurements. Ft. in. Ft. in. Ft. in. Ft. in. Ft. in. Ft. in. Longest blade of whalebone, 1 0 6 0 10 10 11 2 11 6 13 7 Extreme length, 17 0 28 0 51 0 50 0 58 0 52 0 Length of the head, . 5 0 S 6 16 0 15 6 19 0 20 0 Breadth of under jaw,*" 9 6 12 0 Length from tip of lip to fin, 5 6 10 0 18 0 ------ to greatest circumference, 7 0 24 0 Circumference at the neck, 10 0 18 6 31 6 34 0 Greatest circumference, 12 0 20 0 34 0 35 0 Circumference by the genitalia, . 9 0 15 6 19 0 ------------near the tail, 2 11 4 0 6 6 6 8 Fin length, .... 2 3 7 0 6 4 8 6 9 0 ---breadth, 1 3 4 0 4 0 5 0 Tail length, 5 6 5 6 6 0 6 0 ---- breadth, 20 0 17 6 24 0 20 10 Lip length, 4 9 8 2 15 6 15 0 18 6 19 6 ---breadth, 6 2 Produce in oil (tons) 1 4 16 16 19 24 Sex, F. M. F. M. 124 THE WHALE. Its sense of seeing is acute; whales are observed to discover one another in clear water, when under the surface, at an amazing distance. When at the surface, however, they do not see far. They have no voice; but in breathing or blowing they make a very loud noise. The vapour they discharge is ejected to the height of some yards, and appears at a distance like a puff of smoke. When the animals are wounded, it is often stained with blood; and, on the approach of death, jets of blood are sometimes discharged alone. They blow strongest, densest, and loudest, when "running." When in a state of alarm, or when they first appear at the surface, after being a long time down, they respire or blow about four or five times a minute. The whale being somewhat lighter than the me- dium in which it swims, can remain at the surface of the sea, with its " crown," in which the blow- holes are situated, and a considerable extent of the back, above water, without any effort or motion. To descend, however, requires an exertion. The proportion of the whale that appears above water, when alive, or when recently killed, is probably not a twentieth part of the animal; but within a day after death, when the process of putrefaction com- mences, the whale swells to an enormous size, until at least a third of the carcass appears above water, and sometimes the body is burst by the force of air generated within. THE WHALE. j25 By means of the tail principally, the whale ad- vances through the water. The greatest velocity is produced by powerful strokes against the water, impressed alternately upward and downward; but a slower motion, it is believed, is elegantly produced, by cutting the water laterally and obliquely down- ward, in a manner similar to that in which a boat is forced along, with a single oar, by the operation of skulling. The fins are generally stretched out in an horizontal position: their chief application seems to be the balancing of the animal, as the moment life is extinct, it always falls over on its side, or turns upon its back. They appear also to be used in bearing off their young, in turning, and giving a direction to the velocity produced by the tail. Bulky as the whale is, and inactive, or indeed clumsy as it appears to be, one might imagine that all its motions would be sluggish, and its greatest exertions productive of but little celerity. The fact, however, is the reverse. A whale, extended mo- tionless at the surface of the sea, can sink in the space of five or six seconds, or less, beyond the reach of its human enemies. Its velocity along the surface, or perpendicularly, or obliquely down- ward, is the same. I have observed a whale de- scending after I had harpooned it, to the depth of 400 fathoms, with the average velocity of seven or eight miles per hour. The usual rate at which whales swim, however, even when they are on their passage from one situation to another, seldom I2(J THE WHALE exceeds four miles an hour; and though, when urged by the sight of an enemy, or alarmed by the stroke of a harpoon, their extreme velocity may be at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour, yet we find this speed never continues longer than for a few min- utes, before it relaxes to almost one half; hence, for the space of a few minutes, they are capable of darting through the water with the velocity almost of the fastest ship under sail, and of ascending with such rapidity as to leap entirely out of the water. This feat they sometimes perform as an amusement apparently, to the high admiration of the distant spectators; but /.)// ( ,_i m r-< i—i otoi ,-h ,-t ,-t ,—t .—ihhhhhhhcoci O CO C 3 ea .2 1 ephal cious da ella itulina ristata arbata roenland etida rsina Macroc dus Ceta id a e, Cana Rat iia Lotor oma s Voluc !>QpqOPoP » TJ o ° £ >, ^ 3 c o cu S *Q ° 3 s-. o o «i « ^ t 3 O O 0)4)