HISTORY AND DETAILS OF WHALING. 253 



with no contemptible mouthful. In the gullet of one sperm 

 whale, an arm or tentaculum of a sea-squid was found meas- 

 uring nearly twenty-seven feet long." 



Whalemen frequently discover large masses or junks of squid 

 floating about, probably torn in pieces by whales in their 

 search after food. The flesh of the squid is soft, without bones, 

 and somewhat transparent, like the common sunfish seen on 

 our shores. It is said that squid have been seen as large as 

 an ordinary whale. This food for the sperm whale is found in 

 great abundance in the Pacific seas. 



2. The Right Whale. The whale having this general cog- 

 nomen belongs to the species of Balcena Mysticetus. There are 

 several varieties included in this species, as we shall hereafter 

 observe, and which are distinguished by whalemen both in 

 regard to some external peculiarity as well as the different 

 localities where they are usually found. 



The right whale differs from the sperm in the following par- 

 ticulars : his head is sharper, more pointed ; he has no " hump " 

 on his back ; the column of water which he throws up when 

 he "blows" is divided like the tines of a fork; and it rises 

 from his breathing holes in a perpendicular direction from eight 

 to twenty feet. 



The right whale furnishes the bone (baleen) so much in com- 

 mon use, and called "whalebone." This bone is taken from 

 the mouth and upper jaw of the whale, and is set along later- 

 ally, in the most exact order, several inches apart, decreasing 

 in length from the centre of his mouth, or the arch of his pal- 

 ate, and becoming shorter farther back, while towards the lips 

 the bone tapers away into mere bristles, forming a loose hang- 

 ing fringe or border. 



At the bottom of this row of bone, where it penetrates the 

 gum, and from eighteen to thirty inches downward, we find a 

 material that resembles coarse hair, entwining and interlacing 

 the bone, and thus forming a sort of network, and so thick 

 that, when the whale closes his lips to press out the water, the 



