HIMSELF 7 



spicuous characteristic is indicated in his British and Scandi- 

 navian name "rorqual," which refers to the longitudinal folds or 

 pleatings on his throat. There are from fifty to a himdred of 

 these, and they operate accordion-fashion in enlarging the capac- 

 ity of the mouth — perhaps also of the lungs — for the fin whale, 

 like the right whale, feeds on very small fry. It was probably a 

 fin whale of which John Evelyn recorded in his diary: 



"A large whale was taken betwixt my land butting on the 

 Thames and Grenewich, which drew an infinite concourse to 

 see it, by water, horse, coach, and on foot, from London and 

 all parts. It appeared first below Greenewich at low water, for 

 at high water it would have destroyed all the boates, but lying 

 now in shallow water incompassed with boates, after a long con- 

 flict it was kiird with a harping yron, struck in the head, out of 

 which spouted blood and water by two tunnells, and after an 

 horrid grone it ran quite on shore and died. Its length was 58 

 foot, heighth 16; black skinn'd like coach leather, very small 

 eyes, greate taile, onely two small finns, a picked snout, and a 

 mouth so wide that divers men might have stood upright in it; 

 no teeth, but sucked slime onely as thro' a grate of that bone 

 which we call whalebone, the throate yet so narrow as would 

 not have admitted the least of fishes. The extreames of the 

 cetaceous bones hang downewards from the upper jaw, and was 

 hairy towards the ends and bottom within side; all of it prodigi- 

 ous, but in nothing more wonderful than that an animal of so 

 great a bulk should be nourished only by slime thro those grates.'' 



The fin whale group includes, I have said, at least three im- 

 portant species. First among these — in size, anyway — is the 

 blue, or sulphur-bottom, whale, which is the largest animal 

 known. He is bluish-gray above and white or yellowish be- 

 low, and generally from seventy to eighty-five or ninety feet 

 long. One specimen sets the record of size among whales, 

 having measured one hundred and eight feet in length — verily a 

 whale of a whale. He swims faster than most whales, and even 

 before his great size is discovered, whalers know him by his very 

 tall spouting. 



