. Cassell's natural history. Animals; Animal behavior. TEE CAAING, OR PILOT WHALE. 256 their gigantic spoil. Sperm oil, we need hardly say, is exceedingly valuable. The quantity obtained between 1835 and 1872 by the Americans alone is reckoned at 3,671,772 barrels, and the wholesale price has varied during these yeare from four to ten shillings per gallon. The Short-headed Whale, or Snub-nosed Cachalot.*—Under this name, and possibly also that of Gray's Kogia,t an animal has been described which, far smaller in size and in many respects dif- fering from the Sperm Whale, nevertheless is more cl
. Cassell's natural history. Animals; Animal behavior. TEE CAAING, OR PILOT WHALE. 256 their gigantic spoil. Sperm oil, we need hardly say, is exceedingly valuable. The quantity obtained between 1835 and 1872 by the Americans alone is reckoned at 3,671,772 barrels, and the wholesale price has varied during these yeare from four to ten shillings per gallon. The Short-headed Whale, or Snub-nosed Cachalot.*—Under this name, and possibly also that of Gray's Kogia,t an animal has been described which, far smaller in size and in many respects dif- fering from the Sperm Whale, nevertheless is more closely allied to it than to any other of the Cetacea. Whether the two names belong to different or the same species may be left open for the present. At all events, specimens have been obtamed at the Cape of Good Hope, the East Indies, and Australia, which so closely resemble each other as probably to belong to one and the same species. This animal measures from six to ten feet in length, and is almost Porpoise-like in general appearance. It has a well-marked fin behind the middle of the body, short flippers, and the snout is said to be turned up with a margin somewhat like a Pig's. The upper surface of the body is black, and the under parts have a tinge of yellow or light flesh-colom-. The few specimens hitherto obtained afford no information regai-ding its habits. The peculiar construction of its skull, short, broad, distorted, with a bony division in the .spermaceti cavity and other skeletal characters, give it an interest as being an intermediate form between the Cachalot and the Dolphins proper. THE DOLPHINS (). This group possesses considerable diversity in outward form, in skeletal characters, and dentition ; nay more, many of the genera blend into each other. The Narwhal by its peculiar teeth, and the White Whale by its coloui-, besides some few other points, stand apart. The Porpoise and the Neo- meris agree in teeth and skull ; the Killer Whales ar
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