THE SCRAG WHALE. 357 



The whalers in the Southern Ocean have a better way of proceeding : 

 this consists in cutting out, along the whole length of the animal's body, 

 a broad continuous band shaped like a screw, beginning at the head and 

 only finishing at the tail, very nearly in the same way in which children 

 proceed when they are taking off the peel of an orange. 



The head is drawn up by puUies, and they then detach, b}' means of 

 sharp spades, one side of the under-lip, and take it away ; they then 

 detach the tongue, which weighs many thousands of pounds ; then the 

 other half of the lip ; next the upper jaw, with its whalebone-plates, 

 which are becoming more and more sought after in commerce every 

 day. Then they begin to cut a thick band of grease and skin, which 

 they keep on detaching, hauling up on board, and stowing away. It is 

 thus that they unwind, as we may sav, the whale, making its body turn 

 round on itself. The blubber is then melted ; a single Right Whale will 

 yield twenty tons of oil. 



The harpoon, however, has been superseded by the bomb-lancc. This 

 weapon contains about one hundred grains of powder, and can be 

 thrown by a heavy gun a distance of over twenty fathoms. When the 

 gun is fired, the projectile penetrates into the fleshy parts of the animal, 

 the fuse which had been kindled by the explosion of the gun, sets fire 

 to the powder in the bomb, the bomb explodes and throws out 

 barbs. If the explosion of the charge takes place in the lung, death is 

 nearly al\va3's instantaneous. 



The Greenland fishers estimate the size of the fish by the size of the 

 whalebone, and when this is six feet long, the whale is called a size-fish. 

 The flakes of whalebone are from ten to fourteen feet in length in full- 

 grown specimens, the breadth of the largest at the thick end is about a 

 foot. As regards the color of the whalebone, it is variable. In the 

 young, the laminas are frequently striped green and black, but on the old 

 animal they are occasionally altogether black ; often some of the laminje 

 are striped with alternate streaks of black and white, whilst others want 

 this variegation. Whalebone is said to be occasionally found white, 

 without the animal differing in the slightest degree; and, accordingly, 

 this character loses its supposed importance as being a peculiarity of the 

 exceedingly dubious Scrag Whale indicated by Dudley. With regard to 

 the nature of whalebone Dr. Gray writes : " The baleen has generally 

 been considered as the teeth of the whale, but this is a mistake. The 

 teeth in the balmna never cut the gum, but are reabsorbed, while the 



