DESCRIPTION OF RIGHT WHALE. 47 



Two fins, planted a little behind the head, 

 one on each side, with a broad and powerful 

 tail, constitute at once the propelling apparatus 

 and means of defence of the whale. The 

 juncture of these "flukes," or tail, with the 

 main body of the whale is comparatively small, 

 and a skilful whaler will try to cut the tendons, 

 as in hamstringing, with his spade, when the 

 whale is violent. If successful in this, the flukes 

 will be still, and the danger of approaching the 

 whale greatly diminished. The natural work- 

 ing of them on their joints by the waves, after 

 the animal is dead, will always propel the car- 

 cass directly to windward. 



Of a small one that I measured, the fins 

 were five feet long each, and the flukes twelve 

 feet across, horizontally. Of another, and that 

 by no means fully grown, the body was thirty- 

 nine feet long and nineteen feet round, the 

 head seven feet from its tip to the spout-holes, 

 three feet wide just behind the same, and three 

 feet from the upper outside superficies to the 

 roof of the mouth inside, making its entire 

 head, with the mouth closed, seven feet in di- 



