WHALE-LAND AND ITS 

 CUSTOMS. 



There are many kinds of whales, and as much 

 aristocracy among them as in European society. 

 The king among them, and, indeed, of all the 

 sea's inhabitants, is the Greenland, or right whale. 

 This sovereign is sometimes seen on the coast of 

 Britain, and occasionally in even more southern 

 latitudes, but its favorite and most occupied 

 quarters are the northern seas, chiefly in the 

 Arctic regions. 



Of its grotesque and unsymmetrical body, 

 which is often from sixtv to seventy feet long, 

 the head occupies from «, third to a fourth of 

 the entire length, the right side of the skull being 

 larger than the left. It has two small fins, or 

 flippers, but its progress is made by means of 

 the tail, which is fivfc or six feet long and 

 twenty feet wide. The dirty looking, almost 

 entirely black, skin is naked with the exception 

 of a few bristles about the jaws, its surface 

 being moistened by ar, oily fluid. The lower 

 surface of the true skin extends into a thick 

 layer of blubber or fae, which is from a foot 

 to two feet in thicknes«. This blubber fortifies 



