Volume 16, Plate VIII / Mammalia (Mammals)

Spermaceti Whale from Frith of Forth

Seventy to eighty feet long, its vast head a third of the body and holding oil-filled cells that yield spermaceti, it is blackish greenish grey above and silvery beneath, with functional teeth only in the narrow lower jaw and a low bushy spout thrown to the left. Gregarious in great schools and timid yet powerful, it ranges every ocean far from land, feeding chiefly on the squid of deep waters.