86 THE COMMON WHALE. 



this whale is found is occupied by what is called 

 green-water. Something analogous, though of a 

 yellowish or reddish tint, occurs in southern lati- 

 tudes, as will he afterwards noticed. Captain 

 Scorseby, in 1816, first investigated the peculiarities 

 of the green- water. This accomplished naturalist 

 states, that it forms perhaps one-fourth part of the 

 Greenland sea, between the parallels of 74 and 

 80, equal to about twenty thousand square miles. 

 Though it is liable to alteration of position from the 

 action of currents, still it is always found, year after 

 year, near certain situations. It often constitutes 

 long bands or streams, of varying length and breadth, 

 extending 2 or 3 of latitude in length, and from 

 a few miles to thirty or forty in breadth. It is 

 usually an olive-green, and of striking opacity; 

 sometimes it is nearly grass-green, or with a shade 

 of black. 



Mr. Scorseby examined the qualities of this 

 water, and, to his astonishment, found that it ob- 

 tained its colour from the presence of immense 

 numbers of animalcules, most of them invisible 

 without the aid of the microscope. The greatest 

 number consisted of an animal of the medusa kind, 

 belonging to an order with which most of our 

 readers will be familiar, under the vulgar name of 

 sea-blubber, a soft gelatinous substance, often found 

 lying on the sea shore, and exhibiting no signs of 

 life, except shrinking when touched. He found the 

 prevailing specimens to be globular, transparent, 

 and from one-twentieth to one-thirtieth of an inch 



