um 



DURING the summer of 1941, after the manuscript of this 

 book had been sent to the printer, an expedition was 

 made to Fields Landing, California, and the energy-control- 

 ling organs of five whales were collected three humpback 

 whales, one sperm whale, and one finback whale. 



In the literature, the weight of whales is based on the 

 estimate of I ton per linear foot, but we could find no 

 account of the detailed weight of the various organs, and 

 glands, skeleton, flesh, and blubber. 



Through the cooperation of the whaling-station staff at 

 Fields Landing and the use of their power machinery, we 

 dissected and weighed in sections a female finback whale 

 71 feet long, allowing 20 per cent for body fluids and blood. 



We were fortunate, while there, to have a sperm or 

 toothed whale to study. The feeding habits of the sperm 

 whale seldom take it out of the temperate or warm seas, 

 where it lives on large fish and deep-sea cephalopods, such 

 as the giant squid. 



The food of the whalebone whales consists largely of 

 krill, plankton, and small sardines found in the cold fringes 

 of the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans and in the neighborhood 

 of drift ice.' 



On page 297, under Cetacea, a striking difference is seen 

 in the weight of the thyroid gland and heart of the sperm 

 whale, whose habitat is the more equitable temperature of 

 the warmer seas, compared with the weights of the thyroid 

 glands and hearts of the whalebone whales that are sub- 

 jected to the cold of the polar seas. 



If the brain of the sperm whale follows the pattern of 

 the heart and the thyroid gland, as we fully expect it will, 

 then the energy systems of these mammoth creatures 

 the largest now living or that have ever lived will conform 

 with the formula of a large brain, a large heart and blood 

 volume, and a large thyroid gland, which we have found 



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