Who can open the doors of his face?.... Of his mouth, the jaws thereof, which are like a pair of folding doors: the jaws of a crocodile have a prodigious opening. Peter Martyr u speaks of one, whose jaws opened seven feet broad; and Leo Africanus w affirms he saw some, whose jaws, when opened, would hold a whole cow. To the wideness of the jaws of this creature Martial x alludes; and that the doors or jaws of the mouth of the whale are of a vast extent will be easily believed by those who suppose that was the fish which swallowed Jonah;
his teeth are terrible round about; this may seem to make against the whale, the common whale having none; though the "ceti dentati" are a sort of whales that have many teeth in the lower jaw, white, large, solid, and terrible y. Olaus Magnus z speaks of some that have jaws twelve or fourteen feet long; and teeth of six, eight, and twelve feet; and there is a sort called "trumpo", having teeth resembling those of a mill a. In the spermaceti whale are rows of fine ivory teeth in each jaw, about five or six inches long b. But of the crocodile there is no doubt; which has two rows of teeth, very sharp and terrible, and to the number of sixty c.
u Decad. 5. c. 9. w Descript. Africae, l. 9. p. 763. So Sandys's Travels, l. 2. p. 78. Edit. 5. x Epigram. l. 3. cp. 64. y Vid. Plin. l. 9. c. 5, 6. and Philosoph. Transact. vol. 3. p. 544. Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 4. p. 848. z De Ritu Gent. Septent. l. 21. c. 8. a Philosoph. Transact. abridged, vol. 2. p. 847, 848. b Philosoph. Transact. abridged, vol. 7. part 3. p. 425. c Aelian. l. 10. c. 21.