GREENLAND WHALE.—Balena mysticelu 
WHALES. 
THE CETACEA, or WHALES, are more thoroughly aquatic than any other animals which 
have already been described, and are consequently framed in such a very fish-like manner 
that they have generally been considered as fishes by those who were e but little acquainted 
with the animal kingdom. The entire livelihood of the Whale is obtained in the waters, 
and their entire structure is only fitted for traversing the waves, so that if they should 
happen to be cast upon the shore they have no means of regaining their native element, 
and are sure to perish miserably from hunger. 
With the seals, the young are produced upon the land, and there nurtured until they 
have attained sufficient ‘strength to enable them to cope successfully with the sea waves, 
and are, moreover, attended in their marine excursions by their mothers, who exercise a 
watchful guard over their offspring. But the young Whale knows no such terrestrial 
nurture, but is at once received into the bosom of the ocean, being capable from its very 
birth of accompanying its parent in her paths through the waves. 
Although the Whales bear so close a resemblance to the fish, and are able to pass a 
considerable time below the water, they possess no gills through which they may respire 
and renew their blood through the agency of water, but breathe atmospheric air in the 
same manner as the other mammalia. If a Whale were to be detained below the surface 
of the water for too long a period it would be inevitably drowned, a fact which was once 
curiously exemplified by the death of a Whale which had entangled itself in a rope 
fastened to a dead and sunken Whale, and which was found drowned when the rope was 
drawn to the surface. No injury had been inflicted upon the animal, but it had not been 
