312 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



the Greek words megas, meaning great, and ptera, a wing or fin, 

 while bodps is derived from the Greek boopis, meaning "ox-eyed." 

 The alternative nodosa refers to the strange nodules that occur about 

 the fore edge of the vast flippers and all over the head, in regular 

 areas but in a different pattern in each individual. The actual form 

 of the beast, although basically cetacean, defies description and can 

 only be partially displayed by a picture (see Appendix E). The ani- 

 mal appears to be permanently humpbacked, or at least curved over 

 hke a classical drawing of a dolphin; the body is short and very 

 deep; the head is huge; but the jaws are very wide. The dorsal fin 

 is small, recurved, and set very far aft, and the tail flukes are rather 

 large and are serrated along their hind edges. Most distinctive of all 

 are the flippers, which are tremendously long, narrow, and shaped 

 like a jet-plane wing, thick on the forward edge and knife-sharp 

 behind. These have wartlike bumps all over the leading edge and are 

 nearly one third the length of the whole animal. A fifteen-foot flip- 

 per is not uncommon on a fifty-foot whale. 



These nodules, although irregular, are distributed in definite areas 

 corresponding to the arrangement of the sparse hairs on other ror- 

 quals. One series reaches from the blowhole to the tip of the snout; 

 others spread along the upper jaws. Another group usually occurs 

 on the chin and others dot the lower jaw. Each nodule is usually 

 surmounted by a few stiff bristles. Some seventeen deep grooves 

 pleat the underside of the beast from chin to navel, spaced about 

 eight inches apart. The baleen is only about two feet in length, 

 but there are up to four hundred plates per side. It is almost 

 black. 



Apart from the gray whale, this species is more of a coast fre- 

 quenter than any other large cetacean. It enters bays and even 

 ascends rivers, and it seldom gets into difficulties in shallow or 

 muddy waters. Why it enters such confines is not clear, for its food 

 seems to consist almost exclusively of the usual krill, though some 

 fish and many oddities, like small turtles, sea birds, and holothurians, 

 have been found in the stomachs of this species. They migrate in 

 the winter in both hemispheres into warmer waters to mate and 

 give birth, those in the Northern Hemisphere mating in April, while 

 the Southern population indulges this activity in September. Their 

 migrations are as regular as a moon clock and their passing along 



