22 TUE WHALES AND PORPOISES. 



liow it is attached to the mouth of the animal, and for what purposes it is used, even at the risk of 

 being a trifle too elementary for many of the readers of this chapter. 



It is wrongly called "whalebone," since it is not bone, but a substance, resembling equally hair 

 and horu, which grows in the mouth of the animal as a substitute for teeth, 1 being, as anatomists 

 generally admit, a peculiar development of hair growing upon the palate. 2 This substance is 

 developed into a sieve-like apparatus, consisting of extensive rows of compact, flexible, closely set 

 plates or blades, growing from the thick gum at the circumference and palatal surface of the upper 

 jaw, hanging down upon both sides of the tongue. 



Capt. David Gray, of the whaling ship "Eclipse," of Peterhead, Scotland, has recently made 

 a number of important observations upon these whales, one of the most important of which was the 

 ascertainment of the manner in which the Baleen Whales operate the powerful sieve-like organs 

 within their jaws. He has also published some very interesting diagrams of the interior of 

 the mouth of the Greenland Whale. 3 



"Along the middle of the crown-bone," writes Captain Gray, "the blades of whalebone are 

 separated from each other by three-quarters of an inch of gum, but the interval decreases both 

 towards the nose and the throat to a quarter of an inch. The gum is always white; in substance 

 it resembles the hoof of a horse, but softer. It is easily cut with a knife, or broken by the hand, 

 and is tasteless. The whalebone representing the palate is lined inside the mouth with hair, for 

 the purpose of covering the space between the slips, and prevents the food on which the Whale 

 subsists from escaping. This hair is short at the roof of the mouth, but is from twelve to twenty 

 inches long at the points of the whalebone. This it requires to be, because when the mouth is 

 opened the bone springs forward, and the spaces are greatest at the points. I counted the number 

 of blades of whalebone in a whale's head last voyage, and found 286 on the left, and 289 on the 

 right side of the head. 



" Hitherto it has been believed that the whale bone had room to hang perpendicularly from 

 the roof of the mouth to the lower jaw, when the mouth was shut, but such is not the case. The 

 bone is, however, arranged so as to reach from the upper to the lower jaw when the mouth is open; 

 were it otherwise the whale would not be able to catch its food; it would all escape underneath 

 the points of the whalebone. The whale has no muscular power over its whalebone, any more 

 than other animals have over their teeth. When the animal opens its mouth to feed, the whale- 

 bone springs forward and downward, so as to fill the mouth entirely; when in the act of shutting- 

 it again, the whalebone being pointed slightly towards the throat, the lower jaw catches it and 

 carries it up into a hollow in front of the throat." 4 



1 The uuboru Greenland Whale has undeveloped teeth (" sixty to seventy dental pulps on each side of each jaw "), 

 but they never cut the gum, but are reabsorbed into the system. 



Q Buckland remarks: "Aristotle first remarked this fact: ' Mysticetus etiam pitas in ore habet vice dentmm siiis 

 sells similes' the whale lias hairs in his mouth, instead of teeth, like the hairs of a pig." Professor Owen has also 

 remarked that "to a person looking into the mouth of a stranded whale, the concavity of the palate would appear to 

 be beset with coarse hair." 



3 Laud and Water, December 1, 1877, p. 468. 



1 Capt. David Gray's observations upon the position of the whalebone in the mouth of the Greenland Whale are 

 quite novel, and of great interest. They arose, as the captain tells me in a letter just received, in consequence of a 

 conversation which we had together a few years ago, while looking at the skeleton of the large Whale mounted in the 

 Museum of the College of Surgeons. I asked if he could explain, what had always been to me, as to others who have 

 iH'vrr had Captain Gray's opportunities of observation, a great puzzle, viz, how the whalebone, could be so much 

 longer than the space which it occupied in the animal's mouth, supposing the blades to lie placed, as usually repre- 

 sented, at viglil angles wit li the long axis of the jaws. This difficulty occurred in looking ;it all the authentic figures, 

 such as Scorcsliy's, in which the height of the head is far too small for the length assigned to the whalebone on the 

 Supposition stated above, and equally in looking at the actual bony frame-work of the head. Captain Gray's explana- 

 tion that the slender ends (if the whalebone blades fold backwards when the mouth is shut, the longer ones from the 



