BAL;E N A. 



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of that ample field. It is not quite so discursive over 

 the ocean, or so frequently seen in the middle lati- 

 tudes, or indeed in any places where the temperature 

 is warm, as the more voracious whales which feed 

 upon large fishes Those, like the predatory land 

 animals, are furnished with powerful weapons of pre- 

 hension, so that wherever the sea is inhabited they 

 can find food, and the shark himself cannot escape 

 their all-powerful jaws. The common whale, on th 

 other hand, more resembles some peaceful animal 

 which grazes the savannah, or browses the leaves 

 of the evergreen forests ; and therefore it can remain 

 and feed for a season in peculiar localities only. 



These localities may be said to be in an eminent 

 degree the margins of the polar ice the very extremes 

 and confines, as it were, of the ocean. Little is known 

 with certainty of the times or the extent of its migra- 

 tions, because its march along the mighty waters is too 

 fleet for our observation to follow. It is said that they 

 can move as fast as a mail coach- and feed while they 

 are moving ; and as, when wounded by a harpoon, they 

 can " take out " the line so fast that, if not watered, it 

 would speedily take tire by the friction of the roller, it 

 is probable that they can make equal despatch on their 

 journeys ; that is, they can move twenty-five or thirty 

 miles in the hour, the least of which would send them 

 GOO miles a day, or from 60 north latitude to 00 

 south, in the short period of fourteen days. 



The velocity with which they move, and the 

 periods at which it is probable their migrations take 

 place, may both tend to make them in a great mea- 

 sure unobserved. It is probable that they pass the 

 middle latitudes in the stormy weather about the 

 equinoxes ; and thus thousands may pass without one 

 of them being observed from a single ship. They may 

 make their whole course too without feeding, because 

 of the vast accumulation of fat or blubber under the 

 skin, which analogy leads us to conclude can, like 

 the accumulated fat of land animals be, in part at 

 least, absorbed as nourishment when food is scarce, 

 or the habit of the animal prevents it from feeding, 

 At those periods too, the young of many fishes are 

 discursive near the surface, and these may serve for 

 food on the passage, 



These whales catch their food with the plates and 

 fringes of the baleen, as with a net, and the only 

 sense that can guide them in the selection is taste, 

 residing in the tongue ; and the current of water 

 passing over that when the motion is rapid, must be 

 like the stream of a rivulet. It is thus probable that 

 they have little more selection of food than what the 

 throat can swallow. In the balasna that is very 

 limited, the greatest extent of the gullet not being 

 more than would admit a hen's egg. In some of the 

 bahciioptera it is considerably wider as much as 

 between three and four inches in diameter ; and thus, 

 though these are much smaller, they can swallow 

 food in larger morsels. The common large whale 

 certainly could not swallow any fish larger than the 

 herring ; and from its summer feeding in the arctic 

 seas, the times and places where we are best ac- 

 quainted with its economy, it probably feeds very 

 little upon fish of any description. 



Whales are found near the ice, or in the bays or 

 openings among the different ice-fields, and generally 

 in what is termed the green water. This green water 

 derives its colour from the immense multitude of 

 small animals which are dispersed through it; and 

 these animals, many of which are almost or altogether 



microscopic, appear to be the ordinary and proper 

 food of the common whales. The creatures which 

 colour this water may appear to be but slender cheer 

 for the largest of all animals ; but their numbers are 

 such as to make up for their small size ; and the pre- 

 hensile apparatus which the whale displays, is suffi- 

 cient to filter a mile of the sea in a comparatively 

 short time. 



The size of the mouth of course varies with that 

 of the body ; but a gape of more than twenty feet 

 in length and fifteen in breadth is not extravagant. 

 The opening of the jaws may be estimated at eight 

 or perhaps ten feet, which is about the length of the 

 longest plates of baleen, which are situated near the 

 middle of the length. The section of the mouth is 

 therefore about 375 feet, and the solid contents 3000. 

 So that making every allowance, the whale, as it feeds 

 along the deep, commands more water than theThames 

 discharges ; and this immense volume of water pass- 

 ing regularly through the month of one animal, at the 

 rate of say only five or six miles an hour, enables it to 

 collect an incredible quantity of the small matters 

 upon which it feeds. 



The form of the month, the way in which the plates 

 of baleen are arranged, and the fringes with which 

 they are furnished both on their edges and at their 

 extremities, enables the animal to detain every small 

 substance which the water may contain, while the 

 whole arrangement is such that these substances are, 

 as they accumulate, carried towards the opening of 

 the gullet. 



It may here be mentioned that the lips of the 

 whale have a peculiar double curvature in their 

 lateral outline. The lower one is als;> larger than 

 the upper, and has a double margin, forming a groove 

 into which the edge of the upper lip fits when the 

 mouth is shut, and the ends of the baleen when the 

 mouth is open. The internal pafete is formed of two 

 curved inclined planes, one on each side, and to these 

 the thick ends of the plates of baleen are attached 

 by a ligamentous substance. These plates are parallel 

 to each other, and placed across the mouth. There 

 are sometimes several hundreds of them on each side. 

 They are thinned off toward their inner sides, and it 

 is to these that the fringes are attached. The plates 

 appear to have no proper motion or muscular appa- 

 ratus for effecting it. When the mouth is opened 

 they fall pendent by their own weight, so that the 

 fringes on their lips touch the tongue, and those on 

 their sides reach from the one plate to the other. 

 When the animal moves forward, the plates are bent 

 back a little at their points by the resistance of the 

 water, and the fringes are also turned to the direction 

 of the throat. At the anterior part they are shorter 

 in proportion to the middle of the gape, so that they 

 give way and admit the water more freely ; but 

 become stiffer and offer more resistance as the throat 

 is approached. From the great length of the gape 

 the water escapes easily in the lateral interstices 

 between the plates, while the eatable substances which 

 it contains are kept back by the fringes. The bending 

 backward at the points, sends all the food downwards 

 in the direction of the ample and fleshy tongue, which 

 lies like a great cushion filling the under part of the 

 mouth. It does not appear however, that the tongue 

 acts in directing the food to the gullet, in any other 

 way than by influencing the set of the current of 

 water that way. From the smallness of the gullet 

 the quantity of water which reaches it must be small, 



