128 GREAT NORTHERN RORQUAL. 



being thus a great vestibule to the -windpipe and 

 gullet ; wbich last was quite closed when first seen, 

 and appeared as if it would admit with difficulty 

 a man's closed fist. 



Upon the whole, however, the baleen is coarser 

 than in the Mysticetus, and the swallow is compa- 

 ratively larger ; and in both points this is a positive 

 advantage to the Rorqual, and only in keeping with 

 its requirements, because the proper food of this 

 genus is not only the small medusa, shrimps, &c. 

 which have been depicted on Plate iii. as the food of 

 the Mysticetus, but consists of medusa of a larger 

 size, and of fish, such as herring, haddock, cod, 

 salmon, &c. ; and there seems no groimd to question 

 the opinion, that these whales often follow in the 

 tract of these fish, and devour them in quantities 

 which it would not be easy accurately to conceive. 

 Thus M. Desmoulins states, that six hundred great 

 cod and immense quantities of pilchards have been 

 found in the stomach of a single whale of this 

 genus. — Diet. Class. 



The plicaB or folds, whence the genus derives its 

 name, constitute a singular structure, the precise 

 use of which has not hitherto been very clearly as- 

 certained. John Hunter described it with his usual 

 accuracy in one of the whales which he examined, 

 and observed that it must increase the dilatabiHty 

 and elasticity of the integuments of the part, but 

 confessed he could not perceive wherefore this 

 should be, or how it was made useful. Lacepede 

 also particularly describes it, and it has since been 



