262 Dwellers of the Sea and Shore 



They hang in two rows from the upper jaw, a row on 

 each side of the mouth connected by a group of shorter 

 blades in front where the jaw arches down, but those in 

 the middle where the arch is highest are very long. 

 Sometimes they have a length of twelve feet. There 

 are nearly four hundred on each side, and the whole 

 quantity in the mouth of a large specimen often weighs 

 close to two tons. 



Many species of right whales have been described, 

 but naturalists are not quite agreed as to their number 

 or distinctive characteristics. For instance the Bis- 

 cayan whale {B. biscayensis) is supposed by some to be 

 identical with the black whale {B. aiistralis). The 

 former differs from the Greenland whale in having a 

 smaller head and a correspondingly shorter length of 

 whalebone. This species frequents the colder waters 

 of the northern hemisphere, but its range is very wide, 

 havino: been found as far south as the Azores and Ber- 

 muda and even in the Mediterranean Sea. It was once 

 thought to be extinct; it has, however, been seen re- 

 cently in considerable numbers in the North Atlantic. 

 The black whale inhabits the southern hemisphere in 

 the neighborhood of Australia, New Zealand, and the 

 Cape of Good Hope, in the latter region of which I 

 have been so fortunate as to sail through several small 

 herds of them. That was more than twenty years ago, 

 and it would be nearly correct, perhaps, to say that the 

 black whale no longer inhabits the southern seas, for 

 owing to the wanton slaughter of the females as they 

 visited the coastal bays and inlets to breed, their exter- 

 mination is almost complete. Another right whale is 

 one [B. japonica) which ranges the northern half of 



