Identifier: marinemammalsofn00scam (find matches)
Title: The marine mammals of the north-western coast of North America, described and illustrated; together with an account of the American whale-fishery
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Scammon, Charles Melville, 1825-1911
Subjects: Marine mammals Cetacea Sealing Whaling Whales Dolphins
Publisher: San Francisco, J.H. Carmany New York, Putnam
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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rmous bulk of the tentaculumhere spoken of, we shall cease to wonder at thecommon saying of the fishermen, that the cut-tle-fish is the largest fish of the ocean. InTodds Cyclopcedia of Anatomy, p. 529, treatingof Cephalopoda, in an admirable paper by Mr.Owen, it states, that the natives of the Poly-nesian Islands, who dive for shell-fish, have awell-founded dread and abhorrence of theseformidable cephalopods, and one can not feelsurprised that their fears should have perhapsexaggerated their dimensions and destructive at-tributes. The same learned writer, after havingbeautifully described another animal of the sameorder, obsei*ves : Let the reader picture to him-self the projecting margin of the horny hook de-veloped into a long-curved, sharp-pointed claw,and these weapons clustered at the expandedterminations of the tentacles and arranged in adouble alternate series, along the whole internalsurface of the eight muscular feet, and he willhave some idea of the formidable nature of the
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Qo oPn o Wo g CO W w ft to 1to THE SPERM WHALE. 81 depths seeks and devours its animal food, is still tinged with mystery. In pastyears it was commonly believed that the Cachalots home was in the fathomlessdepths of the ocean, and that only a few stragglers were occasionally met withnear coast waters of moderate depth. But we find abundant proof, and from ourown observations, too, that they are met with and have been captured in waters carniverous Onychoteulhis. This species of ceph-alopod is thus armed with those kind of teethat the termination of the tentacles, in orderto secure the agile, slippery, and mucus-cladfishes on which it preys. And there is an in-stance recorded in Sir Grenville Temples Excur-sions in the Mediterranean, by which we perceivethat these terrible creatures sometimes prey ujjonmen! In those shallow waters, says Sir Gren-ville, are caught great quantities of fish, byforming curved lines or palisades some way outto sea with palm branches, by which the fishthat c

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