WHALE FISHERY OF NEW ENGLAND 41 



DIFFERENT SPECIES OF WHALES AND THEIR 

 PRODUCTS 



There are many different kinds of whales; namely, sperm whale, 

 right whale, finback, humpback, razor-back, sulphur bottom whale, 

 and the narwhal. The two former species are the more often sought 

 after. The sperm whale was so called because it was the only kind 

 that furnished sperm oil, which is a richer and more valuable fluid 

 than the ordinary whale oil. This species was also called "cachalot." 

 It has one spout hole through which it blows vapor (not water as is 

 generally supposed), which resembles one's breath on a frosty morning; 

 it has also about fifty teeth on the lower jaw which fit into sockets in 

 the upper jaw, and very small eyes and ears. This kind of whale 

 usually employed its mouth as a means of defence, whereas the right 

 whale used its immense tail. A large-sized whale will yield about 

 eighty barrels of oil, but they have been known to boil even larger 

 amounts. Captain John Rowland of New Bedford captured two whales 

 which produced over four hundred barrels together. The tongue alone 

 often produced twenty-five barrels. In order to attract the squid, 

 or cuttle-fish, which is often lured by a shiny object from the dark 

 recesses in the great depths of the ocean, the jaw and inner side of the 

 Brobdingnagian mouth are lined with a silvery membrane of phosphor- 

 escent whiteness, which is probably the only thing the squid sees when 

 the dark body of the whale is at the great depths to which it sometimes 

 descends for food. Huge pieces of shark and hundreds of mackerel 

 have been found in the stomach of a sperm whale, showing what a 

 carnivorous animal the sperm whale is. 



The right whale was so called because it Was supposed to be the 

 "right" whale to capture. It differs from the sperm whale chiefly 

 from the fact that it has long strips of whalebone in its mouth wliich 

 catch the small fish for food, the whalebone serving in place of the x eeth 

 of the other species. A right whale usually has about five or six hiimjred 

 of these parallel strips, which weigh in all about one ton; they are 

 over ten feet long, are fixed to its upper jaw, and hang down on each 

 side of the tongue. These strips are fringed with hair, which hangs 

 from the sides of the mouth and through which the whale strains the 

 "brit," on which a right whale feeds. The "brit" is a little reddish 

 shrimp-shaped jellyfish which occurs in such quantities in various parts 

 of the ocean that often the sea is red with them. With its mouth 

 stretched open, resembling more than anything else a Venetian blind, 

 a sulphur bottom or right whale scoops, at a speed of from four to six 

 miles an hour, through the "brit" just under the surface and thus 

 sifts in its search for food a tract fifteen feet wide and often over a 

 quarter of a mile long. As the whale drives through the water much 

 like a huge black scow, the sea foams through the slatted bone, packing 

 the jellyfish upon the hair sieve. When it thinks it has a mouthful it 

 raises the lower jaw and, keeping the lips apart, forces the great spongy 

 tongue into the whalebone sieve. It then closes its lips, swallows the 



