48 THE WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES. 



ameter, or twenty- one feet round. The length 

 of one of another species, a " sperm whale," 

 which I exactly measured, was fifty-nine feet, 

 and thirty round. 



The ear of the whale is extremely small, 

 and so hidden, like a mole's, that you would 

 not find it without diligent search. Still the 

 creature is thought by seamen to be quick of 

 hearing as well as sharp of sight. The organ 

 for the latter sense is about as large as the eye 

 of an ox. The head of a " right whale," when 

 his mouth is open in feeding, or when he brea- 

 ches, as I have sometimes seen him do quite out 

 of water, is a most uncouth and formidable 

 sight. The huge lips close from below upward, 

 and shut in, when the monster has got a mouth- 

 ful, like the great valve of a mammoth bellows, 

 or the water gates of a canal lock. 



The living of this vast animal is thought to 

 be upon a substance which I hear universally 

 called by whalemen " right whale feed." It ap- 

 pears in the water as a red-coloured insect, 

 which, with the medusae associated with it, as 

 Captian Scoresby has described, is in trapped by 



