66 



WHALEBONE AND WHALEBONE WHALE g . 



CHAPTER VII. 



WHALEBONE AND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



SEEING that the substance so-called has nothing in common 

 with true bone, many zoological writers object to the use of 

 the term ' ' whalebone " ; and they have accordingly proposed 

 the substitution of the word " baleen," which has been 

 specially coined for the purpose. To our thinking, there is, 

 however, no necessity for this substitution of a word of 

 foreign origin for such a well-known English name, any 

 more than there is for replacing the native term " black 

 lead" by its foreign equivalent . " graphite." Everybody 

 knows what is meant by whalebone or black lead, while 

 comparatively few are familiar with the terms "baleen" 

 and " graphite" ; and as the two former are every bit as 

 p:ood as their foreign substitutes, we prefer to employ them. 

 If, indeed, there should exist any persons so misguided as 

 to imagine either that whalebone is equivalent to the bone 

 of whales, or that black lead has any sort of affinity with 

 lead, we fear that the substitution of the terms "baleen" 

 and "graphite" would not much aid in removing their 

 ignorance. 



The substance which we accordingly take leave to call 

 whalebone is one of the chief essential characteristicR 

 by which the whalebone whales are distinguished from 

 the toothed whales forming the subject of the preceding 

 chapter. As our readers are probably aware, this 

 substance is attached to the upper surface of the mouth 

 of the whale, from which it depends in the form of 

 a series of parallel, narrow, elongated, triangular plates, 

 placed transversely to the long axis of the mouth, 

 with their external edges firm and straight, but the 

 inner ones frayed out into a kind of fringe. The 

 longest plates of whalebone are situated near the middle 

 of the jaw, from which point the length of the plates 

 gradually diminishes towards the two extremities, where 



