THE ORDER CETACEA. 27 



black, marbled with shades of less deeper hue, and as- 

 sumes somewhat of a greyish tint. In some animals it 

 is striped longitudinally with white, and when newly 

 cleaned, affords a fine display of colour. Sometimes 

 they are concealed within a greyish epidermis, and 

 then they assume that colour. Along the bone forming 

 the superior part of the mouth, or upper jaw, the 

 laminae are placed with a trifling inclination from the 

 front to the rear ; the base of them entering the gum, 

 which it traverses, and penetrates even into the jaw- 

 bone, whilst the convex portion of each lamina is ap- 

 plied against the vault of the palate, which then ap- 

 pears as if bristling with very hard hairs, and the 

 length of which, in passing the lips, constitutes a spe- 

 cies of beard, which denomination is frequently given to 

 them. 



The palate of the whale being oval, we can easily con- 

 ceive that the longest laminae must be nearer its greatest 

 diameter, and that the shortest must necessarily be 

 situated near the entrance to the throat, and towards 

 the end of the muzzle. 



Some of these laminae are twenty-five feet in length ; 

 their base, which penetrates into the gum to the depth 

 of two or four feet, is a foot or a foot and a half in 

 thickness ; and on each side there are from three to four 

 hundred of these laminae : in a very small whale, the 

 number was either eight hundred and sixteen, or eight 

 hundred and twenty. 



The whale- seamen consider that, if the largest lamina 

 measures six feet and one inch, it is a full-sized whale : 

 by this they are entitled to a certain sum, if it measures 

 that length ; but not if less. However, it not unfre- 

 quently measures fifteen feet in the larger whales, and 



