RIGHT WHALES 131 



whales. It is said that these whales yield a larger 

 amount of bone in proportion to oil, and that the 

 blow holes are situated higher up. 



The Right whale and the following statements 

 apply, of course, to the southern as well as to the 

 polar Right whale feeds, as is well known, upon 

 minute pelagic creatures. The minuteness of the food 

 led the ancients to the belief that they lived upon 

 water only. Pteropods and Crustacea form the bulk 

 of its food, which it has not, therefore, to laboriously 

 collect. The Arctic seas are often dyed for acres 

 with these small floating animals, and thus (as 

 Dryden accurately observes in the Annus Mirabilis) 

 the whales need "give no chase, but swallow in the 

 fry, which through their gaping jaws mistake the 

 way." But when engaged in feeding the whale 

 hardly lies "behind some promontory," as another 

 poet suggests, but, as Scammon better puts it, " moves 

 through its native element, either below or near the 

 surface, with considerable velocity, its jaws being- 

 open, whereby a body of water enters its capacious 

 mouth, and along with it the animalculse (termed by 

 the whalemen 'Right whale feed' or 'Brit')." 



The whale's mouth is enormous, and its capacity 

 is enlarged by the outward sweep of the rami of 

 the lower jaw, which have together a spoon-like 

 contour. The plates of whalebone act as strainers, 

 and the method of their action has been elaborately 

 described by the late Captain Gray.* The following 



* In La?id and Water for the year 1878. 



