780 



GET ACE A. 



efficient than many a pair of apparently well-formed 

 feet. 



Singular and powerful, however, as is this part of 

 these animals, perhaps the swimming' paws are even 

 more curious. The bones are not quite the same in 

 shape, or in relative size, as those of the human arm, 

 but they are about the same in number, and they hold 

 the same relative situations with regard to each 

 other. There is a regular scapular or blade bone, a 

 humerus, a radius, and ulna, as in the fore-arm, and 

 there are five fingers to the hand, which, however, 

 act all in one plane. 



The whole of this curious apparatus, the only 

 extremity which the cetacous animal has, is flattened, 

 and the motions of the joints have not the same 

 freedom as in land animals ; but still it acts pretty 

 readily as a clasper, the use to which it is often 

 applied, especially by the female, which carries her 

 young in her arms the same as the quadrumana do 

 upon land. 



The muscles, the membranes, and all the soft 

 textures of the cetacea, though they have very much 

 the colour and structure of those of the larger rurni- 

 nantia, and of some of the herbivorous species which 

 are used as food, have that tendency to putrify in the 

 air which is common to almost all animals which 

 are inhabitants of the water. In mature animals, the 

 flesh is hard and firm in the recent state, though 

 stringy and dry, the fat being all accumulated in the 

 cellular tissue under the skin ; but the flesh of the 

 young is more tender, and it is eaten with zest by the 

 inhabitants of some of the dreary regions of the 

 extreme north. 



The tail is the most curiously organised portion of 

 the whole animal, and it is always powerful in propor- 

 tion as the head of the animal is less capable of doing 

 violence, and the animal less inclined to attack any 

 other living creature. This, however, is in accord- 

 ance with a general law both in the water and on 

 the land. It is well worthy of remark, both on 

 account of the fact and the moral, that murderous 

 animals are never what we may call "armed." 

 Their only weapons are their feeding ones ; and 

 when we come to any animal that has what may be 

 called a weapon for war only, whether that weapon 

 be a horn, a spear, a spine, as in many fishes, the 

 lancet fish family, for instance, that animal never 

 preys upon other animals, and (unless in the battles 

 of gallantry) never uses it but in self-defence. The 

 tail of the whale, especially that of the common 

 Greenland whale (see BAL^EN^E), is a very powerful 

 weapon, but the owner of it is never the first to make 

 an attack. The lobes of this powerful organ some- 

 times measure as much as twenty feet across ; and 

 they are not a merely radiated structure, covered 

 with membrane, a sort of aquatic feathers as it were, 

 as is the case with the fins of fishes. They consist 

 of a very compact tissue of fine and strong tendons, 

 elastic in so far in themselves, and pulled to their 

 remotest extremities by the muscles to which they 

 are attached, so that the fin has rigidity to the very 

 extremity, and is in truth a mass of force all over. 

 There are three layers of those tendinous fibres, one 

 on each of the external surfaces of the fin, or lobes 

 rather, and one internal. These can act either in 

 concert or against each other, so that they can 

 produce an endless number of degrees both of 

 motion and rigidity. This organ is less powerful in 

 most of the toothed whales than it is in the balsenae, 



or whalebone whales ; but in the whale genus it is a 

 very efficient instrument, having far more varied and 

 powerful motion than the tail of any iish. 



Alimentary System, When we consider the cetacea 

 in this point of view, we feel the imperfection of 

 even the least objectionable classifications of animals 

 that have hitherto been made. In this respect they 

 bear at least some resemblance to the ruminating 

 animals ; but they include in their number, portions 

 which, in respect of their feeding apparatus, and 

 also of the value of their food, bear a resemblance to 

 many orders of the terrestrial mammalia. Some are 

 herbivorous, some live on the small animals which 

 float in the sea, and some, again, prey upon the 

 largest fishes. The characters of the alimentary 

 organs, at least those of the prehensile, or masticating 

 ones, are therefore rather means of distinguishing the 

 different groups and genera of the cetacea from each 

 other, than as being characteristic of the whole, as 

 an order. 



In many of the smaller species, as, for instance, 

 in the dolphins, the jaws are long, but the mouth is 

 narrow ; while in others, as in the whales properly so 

 called, it is very broad and deep. The lengths of the 

 jaws vary in different species ; and, indeed, there are 

 so many different forms of the head and mouth, that 

 not one of them can be taken as part of the general 

 character of the order. 



All have not teeth ; and on those that have them, 

 some have them in one jaw, and some in both, so 

 that there can be no general character founded on 

 the teeth. Those that have teeth have them as 

 prehensile instruments only, and not as organs of 

 mastication. The food of the cetacea is therefore, 

 generally speaking, taken into the stomach entire, 

 and, what would not, a priori, be expected in swallow- 

 ing animals of such large size, the throat is in general 

 of small dimensions that of the whalebone whale 

 not being larger, even in specimens of the full size, 

 than to admit a pullet's egg. The more voracious 

 species have the gullet wider ; and the dolphins, and 

 especially the porpoises, have it wider in proportion 

 than the true whales. 



Whale 



The curious apparatus, by means of which the 

 whalebone whales capture their prey, may be under- 

 stood from the annexed cut and description, the last 

 being in substance from the illustrious Cuvier. 



