THE ARCTIC SEAS. 145 



a single year, and one cargo has been known to yield 

 11,000/. It is, therefore, well worth our considera- 

 tion, and the more particularly, because in its struc- 

 ture and habits there are more than ordinary evi- 

 dences of that gracious forethought and contrivance, 

 the tracing of which makes the study of nature so 

 instructive. The Greenland Whale has no affinity 

 with fishes ; it is as much a mammal as the ox or the 

 elephant, having warm blood, breathing air, bringing 

 forth living young, and suckling them with true 

 milk. It inhabits the Polar Seas, beyond which 

 Hhere is no satisfactory proof that it has ever been 

 seen. Its length is from fifty to sixty feet, when 

 full grown; perhaps, in extremely rare cases, seventy 

 feet; all statements giving it a greater length than 

 this, either refer to other species, such as the great 

 Rorqual, or are gross exaggerations. The form is 

 rather clumsy, the head being very large, and the 

 mouth reaching to scarcely less than a fourth of the 

 total length of the animal. The gullet is so small as 

 not to admit the passage of a fish so large as a her- 

 ring ; hence its support is derived from creatures of 

 very small bulk, and apparently insignificant, such 

 as shrimps, sea slugs, sea blubbers, and animalcules 

 still smaller, which I will presently notice. But 

 how does it secure its minute and almost invisible 

 prey ? for without some express provision, these 

 atoms would be quite lost in the cavity of its 

 capacious mouth, unless swallowed promiscuously 

 with the water, which would fill the stomach be- 

 fore a hundredth part of the meal was obtained. 



There is a very peculiar contrivance to meet this 

 10 N 



