THE RORQUAL. 101 
approach to the sea-shore; but the enmity of the narwhal is 
evidently fabulous, as both cetaceans may frequently be seen 
together in perfect harmony. 
Besides these formidable attacks of what may be considered 
as more or less noble foes, the whale is constantly harassed by 
the bites of the vilest insects. <A large species 
of louse adheres by thousands to its back, and 
enaws this animated pasture-ground, so as to 
cover it frequently with one vast sore. In the 
summer, when this plague is greatest, numbers 
of aquatic birds accompany the whale, and settle 
on his back, as soon as it appears above the 
water, in order to feed upon these disgusting parasites. 
Barnacles often cover the whale in such masses, that his 
black skin disappears under a whitish mantle, and even sea- 
weeds attach themselves to his vast jaws, floating like a beard, 
and reminding one of Birnam’s wandering forest. 
As its name testifies, the home of the Greenland whale is 
confined to the high northern seas, where it has been met with 
in the open waters or along every ice-bound shore as far as man 
has penetrated towards the Pole. The southern limit of its 
excursions seems to be about 60° N. lat. It never visits the 
North Sea, and is seldom found within 200 miles of the British 
coasts. Its favourite resorts are the so-called whale-grounds,* 
between 74° and 80° N. lat., where the warmth, imparted to the 
water by the Gulfstream, favours the multiplication of the 
small marine animals which form the nourishment of the 
Leviathan of the seas. 
Sometimes open spaces in the ice, abounding in minute 
crustaceans and meduse, attract a larger number of whales, but 
the huge creature cannot be said to live in larger herds or asso- 
ciations. 
The Fin-fish or northern Rorqual (Balenoptera boops, mus- 
culus) attains a greater length than the sleek-backed Greenland 
whale, but does not equal it in bulk, having a more elongated 
form and a more tapering head. Its whalebone is much shorter 
and coarser, being adapted to a different kind of food, for, de- 
spising the minute medusz and crustaceans which form the food 
of its huge relation, the more nimble rorqual pursues the herring 
W nale Louse 
* See page 20. 
