FISHERIES. 



which are situated about two feet behind the 

 angles of the mouth, and are nearly five feet 

 broad by nine feet in length. The tail, which is 

 in the shape of a crescent, is horizontal, and about 

 renty-four feet broad. It is an instrument of 

 lense power ; and the whale has given strokes 

 nth it which have sent large boats high into 

 "ie air in splinters. The colour of the body is 

 linly a velvety black j the under part of the head 

 id abdomen, and the junction of the tail, being 

 irtly white, and partly of a freckled gray. The 

 es of the whale are about a foot behind the angle 

 the mouth, and are not much larger than those 

 'the ox. The iris is of a white colour, and the 

 organs are guarded by lids and lashes, as in 

 quadrupeds. The two blow-holes of the whale, 

 situated on the summit of the head, and descend- 

 ing perpendicularly through it for a length of 

 twelve inches into the windpipe, are the only 

 other external features worthy of notice. 



The mouth of the common whale is an organ of 

 wonderful construction, and in a large specimen it 

 may measure, when fully opened, sixteen feet long, 

 twelve feet high, and ten feet wide. It contains no 

 teeth ; and enormous as the bulk of the creature 

 is, its throat is so narrow that it would choke upon 

 a morsel which an ox could easily swallow. 



From this peculiarity, it may be anticipated 

 that the food of the animal is composed of very 

 minute substances. In fact, the whale feeds on 

 a multitude of smaller inhabitants of the deep ; 

 and to permit this, its mouth is provided with a 

 remarkable apparatus, composed of what is called 

 baleen, the well-known whalebone of commerce. 

 There are about 600 of these plates, and when 

 dried, they weigh about a ton. 



The use of these elastic plates, with their pendu- 

 lous fringes, is to retain, as in a net, the multitude 

 of small animals which are floated into the mouth 

 of the whale whenever it is opened. Were it not 

 for such a drainer, and the aid of the tongue, 

 which is merely a great mass of fat tied down to 

 the lower jaw, the emission of the water would be 

 attended by the escape of all the objects which 

 entered with it. As it is, the most minute matters 

 are retained ; and shrimps, sea-snails, small crabs, 

 medusae, &c. are entrapped by the great monster 

 of the deep. 



The skin of the whale consists of the scarf-skin 

 or epidermis, which is moistened by an oily fluid, 

 enabling it to resist the action of water ; of the 

 rete mucosum, a layer usually held to contain the 

 colouring-matter of all animal surfaces ; and of 

 the true skin. This, for particular purposes, is 

 open in texture, so as to contain the blubber, from 

 which the oil is boiled out in great quantities. This 

 mass, which surrounds the whole animal in a 

 layer from one to two feet thick, and sometimes 

 weighs more than thirty tons in all, serves the 

 important end of keeping it warm by its weak 

 conducting powers, and is also calculated to 

 resist the enormous pressure to which its body 

 must be subjected at the depths to which it 

 often descends. Moreover, being inferior in spe- 

 cific gravity to water, this body of oil must be 

 of great service in augmenting the buoyancy of 

 the animal's frame. Below the skin are situated 

 the muscles or flesh, which is red in colour, and 

 tastes like coarse beef ; and the character of this 

 structure is much the same in the whale as in the 

 ox or horse. With the exception of the tail, the 



arrangement of the various muscles of the whale 

 does not differ very much from that of quadru- 

 peds, and the same remark applies to the osseous 

 structure. The fins are merely rudimentai arms, 

 containing nearly the same bones as in man, and 

 the chest strongly resembles that of ordinary 

 quadrupeds. The vertebral column of the rorqual 

 whale contains sixty-three bones ; those of the 

 Greenland whale are not quite so numerous. The 

 skull consists of the crown-bone, from which the 

 facial bones and upper jaw project forward ; while 

 the lower jaw is composed of two long curved 

 bones, that meet at the point or forepart of the 

 mouth. These bones are hard and porous, and 

 some of them contain large quantities of fine oil, 

 but they have no proper medulla or marrow. 



The organs of respiration in the whale are 

 formed upon the same principle as those of land 

 animals, but with modifications to suit the element 

 in which the creature lives. As with terrestrial 

 animals, the air gives a red colour to the blood, or, 

 in other words, oxygenates it, and sustains the 

 animal heat Accordingly, the whale has fre- 

 quently to come to the surface for air ; but this 

 operation is rendered less frequently necessary by 

 the provision of a reservoir, consisting of a plexus 

 of vessels filled with oxygenated blood, which can 

 be drawn upon when required. The quantity of 

 the blood, too, is great in proportion to the whole 

 mass of the frame. The brain of the whale is held 

 by Cuvier to be large in relation to the animal, 

 but the arrangements of its nervous system are 

 not understood. It is known that whales possess 

 pretty acute vision, but there is a doubt whether 

 or not they have any external ear. Their sense 

 of smell seems to lie in the blow-holes, if any- 

 where. The strongest evidence, however, of their 

 having the sense seems to be only the half-tradi- 

 tionary notion of sailors, that if certain strong- 

 smelling substances are thrown overboard, whales 

 will flee from the spot at once. The mamma: of 

 the common whale are two in number, and at- 

 tached to the abdomen ; in the case of some other 

 varieties, they are placed on the breast. The milk 

 of the animal is said to be rich and creamy. 



The cachalot or spermaceti whale differs from 

 the Greenland species in having no baleen. It is 

 much larger in size than the ' right whale,' beins 

 frequently found to extend to a length of seventy 

 or eighty feet, and sometimes even attaining the 

 extraordinary dimensions of ninety and a hundred 

 feet, from the snout to the tail Some species of 

 the spermaceti whale possess two, others three 

 fins ; some have the spout in the neck, others in 

 the snout ; some have flat teeth, and others sharp 

 teeth ; and the colour of the back varies between 

 black, blue, and gray. Generally speaking, the 

 characteristics now to be noticed are common to 

 all The head is enormous, being fully more than 

 a third of the whole body, and it ends like an 

 abrupt and steep promontory in front. The sire 

 of head in the sperm-whale has a very extra- 

 ordinary purpose to serve. To assist in floating 

 the animal, a great cavity in the interior of the 

 skull is filled with a fine oil, which becomes con- 

 crete on cooling, and forms spermaceti Some of 

 this oil is also found along the vertebral column ; 

 and in a bag in the intestines, or, as some writci -. 

 say, in the faeces, ambergris is found. These arc 

 the principal objects of the sperm-whale fishery, 

 the blubber procured from this variety of the 



