STRUCTURE OF CETACEA. 371 



to the atmosphere, and it refers us at once to that 

 Being to whom the physical necessities of all His 

 creatures are known, and by whose wisdom alone 

 those necessities can be appropriately supplied. 



A similar remark may be made with respect to 

 the structure of the mouth in the common whale. 

 This animal, as is well known, feeds upon the 

 minute crustaceous and molluscous animals, and 

 the gelatinous medusa that abound in the northern 

 seas. Its jaws are accordingly furnished, not with 

 teeth, but with a series of horny laminae, called 

 whalebone, or baleen. These plates are attached 

 to the upper jaw in rows parallel to each other, 

 and are furnished at their edges with fringes to 

 the number of several hundreds. These fringes 

 form a strainer through which the water, taken 

 into the animal's mouth, is made to pass, leaving 

 behind multitudes of the creatures which form 

 its food. To an animal thus nourished, teeth 

 would not constitute a suitable apparatus; but 

 the huge strainer in question is precisely adapted 

 to the whale's requirements, its food requiring no 

 mastication. Here we possess a very striking in- 

 stance of a structure strictly adapted to a peculiar 

 and indispensable purpose, for which nothing but 

 the intention and design of Infinite Skill can 

 account. 



We arrive at a similar conclusion when we 

 consider another peculiarity in the structure of 

 the whale. What is called the blubber has been 

 ascertained by anatomists to be the true skin of 



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