THE COMMON WHALE. 87 



in diameter. (See Plate iii.) Figure 1 is a spe- 

 cimen of tliis, of course greatly magnified ; figure 2 

 represents another of these minute animals, resem- 

 bling small portions of fine hair, somewhat dark in 

 colour, and verging in length from a point to one- 

 tenth of an inch. There appeared to be about 

 thirty bead-like articulations in the largest, being 

 thus beautifully monoliform; their diameter ap- 

 peared to be about one three-hundredth part of an 

 inch. Figs. 3, 4, 5, exhibit other minute animals 

 which were wholly invisible to the naked eye. 

 The number of medusa was found to be immense. 

 Mr. S. estimates that two square miles contained 

 23,888,000,000,000,000; and as this number is 

 above the range of human thought, he illustrates it 

 by observing, that 80,000 persons must have started 

 at the creation of the world to complete the enu- 

 meration at the present time. These animalculas 

 are not to be considered as the immediate food of 

 the whale; they form, however, the food of the 

 various shrimps and minute crabs, lobsters, and sea- 

 snails (figs. 6, 7, 8, 9), and medusa, &c. (10, 11, 

 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19,) upon which the 

 monster of the deep is supported. In this plate is 

 seen at one glance the common food of this enor- 

 mous whale; and its dependence on these minute 

 insects, as well as that of the greater number 

 of animals which inhabit those prodigious and 

 dreary seas, is almost too clear to require demon- 

 stration. As before stated, the invisible animal- 

 culae supply nourishment to the innumerable small 



