AMERICAN MUSEUM WHALE COLLECTION 



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can be "flensed" in twenty minutes. 

 The body is then turned over by means 

 of the "canting winch," the other side 

 denuded of its blubber covering, and the 

 viscera removed. The whale is hauled 

 to the "carcass platform," the flesh 

 stripped off, the skeleton disarticulated 

 and the bones chopped in pieces. 



While this work is going on, an oppor- 

 tunity is given the naturalist to secure 

 valuable observations upon the skeleton 

 as the bones lie in position — if he be not 

 afraid of blood and grease. The exami- 



nation of fresh specimens is the only way 

 in which many disputed points in the 

 osteology of the large whales can ever be 

 settled, for after the skeletons have been 

 disarticulated the smaller bones are 

 almost in\'ariably lost in the tons of 

 flesh with which the skeleton is covered. 

 Before 1864 when the invention of the 

 harpoon gun by Svend Foyn made the 

 shore station possible, dead whales 

 which had been cast upon the coast were 

 almost the only ones which ever came 

 under the observation of a trained ob- 



Towing a white whale to the beach. This animal had just been killed from a canoe and is being 

 towed to the beach where its skeleton^'was removed for the Museum 



