2 A BOOK OF WHALES 



that is expected of a whale. Actual length measure- 

 ments have been swollen by taking into account the 

 bulging sides of the Cetaceans, and with this help 

 some astounding dimensions have received the sanc- 

 tion of not specially credulous persons. One Octher, 

 a Norwegian, reported to King Alfred that the best 

 whales caught in his own country were as much as 

 50 yards long. This is some diminution from Pliny, 

 who held that "in the Indian sea the fish called 

 balcena, or whirlpool, is so long and broad as to take 

 up more length and breadth than two acres of 

 ground." Nine hundred feet is another measure- 

 ment given by the same natural historian. But the 

 size of whales by no means decreased with the ad- 

 vance of the centuries. Olaus Magnus allowed 960 

 feet in length to certain "hirsute" whales, but when 

 the latter authority comes down to definite and 

 recorded fact, he is more careful with such measure- 

 ments. In a section of his well-known work Olaus 

 Magnus figures a " monstrosus piscis," stranded on 

 the northern shores of England in the year 1532, 

 which was naturally regarded as a portent. This 

 animal, or another seen by the archbishop on the 

 Norwegian shore, was 90 feet in length, a measure- 

 ment which may conceivably have been accurate, 

 since it seems to have been a Balcenoptera, which is 

 known to reach 85 feet in length. 



Apart, however, from all exaggeration, it is evident 

 that whales are not only the largest of living 

 mammals, but the largest of all animals, mamma- 

 lian or otherwise, which have ever existed. It is 



