THE OPEN SEA 81 



its mouth, while the whalebone plates act as 

 a sieve and prevent the small animals from 

 getting away. The stomach of a dead whale 

 has been found to contain a mass of minute 

 animals so thick that it could only be dug out 

 with a spade. 



The whale has no settled place of abode in 

 the ocean, and its swimming powers enable it 

 to make enormous journeys. Some whales 

 " travel twice a year more than a quarter of 

 the circumference of the globe, being in sum- 

 mer amid the Arctic snows, and in winter on 

 the other side of the equator." They travel 

 mainly in the wake of their food-supply, but 

 as there is a great regularity in the occurrence 

 of the smaller marine organisms, " their jour- 

 neyings are in general as regular as if they 

 were arranged according to the stars, and as if 

 they took place along laid-out paths bounded 

 on both sides." 



On their journeyings the whales often form 

 troops or "schools," consisting chiefly of fe- 

 males and young ones. The Greenland whale 

 has usually only one young one at a time, 

 which may be over three yards long at birth. 

 The mother gives it suck for about a year, 

 and is devotedly attached to it. 



