J36 



MAMMALIA. 



be the case, in the mode of feeding of this species of 

 whale as compared with that of other whales, and in 

 this respect there is a correspondence between the 

 sea mammalia and those of the land. In both 

 situations, those species which take their food in the 

 smallest portions, or which have it of the least nutri- 

 tive quality, which comes exactly to the same in 

 effect, are most constantly feeding, and by necessary 

 consequence most habitually in motion ; though ani- 

 mals which subsist upon larger and more nourishing 

 prey, and which require more violent efforts in the 

 capture of it, can move with greater velocity for a 

 short time. In respect of the proportion which the 

 individual morsels of its food bear to its own size, the 

 Greenland whale may be said to be peculiar among 

 the mammalia. It is among the largest, if not the 

 very largest of the class ; and yet the animals on 

 which it feeds are smaller than those which a common 

 cat finds for itself in a state of nature. This food also 

 floats at no very great depth, and consequently the 

 whale is a surface feeder, and though its food is ani- 

 mal, and its digestive system in accordance with this, 

 its ranging the ocean for its subsistence, in so far as 

 the mere moving is concerned, bears no inconsider- 

 able resemblance to that of a ruminant animal in 

 browsing the herbage of the ground. 



It is necessary to take this habit of the whale along 

 with us, in order that we may rightly appreciate the 

 particular form of its organs of swimming, and also 

 that general shape of the body which gives those 

 organs the greatest possible efficiency in the element 

 in which the animal lives. 



In as far as the head, the trunk, the tail, and the 

 anterior extremities are concerned, the parts of the 

 whale are numerically the same, and placed in the 

 same order as in other mammalia ; but the posterior 

 extremities are altogether wanting, and though the 

 internal structure of the mammalia requires that there 

 should be a pelvis of some kind or other for support- 

 ing the abdominal viscera, yet this pelvis is very rudi- 

 mental in the whale. [It is to be understood that 

 when in this part of the article we use the w ord whale 

 without any qualifying epithet, the Greenland whale 

 is always meant.] The rudimental pelvis consists of 

 three little bones, the middle one of which answers 

 to the two bones of the pelvis in ordinary mammalia ; 

 and the others, which represent the haunch and hip 

 bones, are only a single elongated and very slender 

 bone upon each side. These bones serve merely to 

 give a little stiffness to the flesh at the place where 

 they are situated ; and thus prevent the violent action 

 of the grand swimming organ from jerking and dis- 

 turbing the viscera, more especially the lungs, so 

 much as it otherwise would do. They are not in 

 any way articulated upon the spinal column, neither 

 is there any appendage with a bone in it articulated 

 upon any of them, either external or internal of the 

 animal. By this means, while they prevent injury in 

 the way which we have stated, they allow peri'ect 

 freedom of motion to the spine. That spine is the 

 grand basis of locomotion in the whale, and all the 

 parts of the animal are adapted for giving it the very 

 maximum of effect. As is the case in all the mam- 

 malia, its principal flexure is in the mesial plane, in 

 bending upward or bending downward ; but after the 

 more essentially vital parts of the animal are past, 

 the posterior part of it has both lateral and twisting 

 motions. The vertebrae of the neck are exceedingly 

 short for so large an animal, but they are always the 



same in number as in land mammalia, and they have 

 remarkably little motion. With the exception of the 

 anterior extremities, afterwards to be noticed, and 

 the broad and bilobed expansion of the tail, there is 

 no projecting member upon any part of the body of 

 this animal, which can either accelerate or retard its 

 motion through the water. In this respect it possesses 

 an advantage over those whales which have a fin on 

 the back, because this fin prevents the body from 

 turning round with the same ease and rapidity. 



The bod}' of the whale is thus so formed as to be 

 perfectly obedient to the operation of the few swim- 

 ming organs which it possesses ; and it is besides so 

 formed as that these can act to the greatest advan- 

 tage, while it offers the least resistance to the water 

 which could be offered by an animal of equal volume. 

 Its skin is perfectly smooth, and it is kept always soft 

 and flexible by the great quantity of soft fat which 

 lies under it. 



The anterior extremities, or " fins," or " swimming 

 paws," as they are sometimes termed, are not organs 

 of progressive motion, neither are they organs of 

 ascent arid descent, like the pectoral and abdominal 

 fins of fishes. In moving, their chief use is to turn 

 the body round on its axis, or to assist in enabling it 

 to perform loops or doubles in the line of its move- 

 ment. We introduce a cut of the skeleton of a 



swimming paw of the whale. The bones of this 

 member are the same in number and arrangement as 

 those of the land mammalia a blade bone, a shoulder 

 bone, two bones in the fore arm, carpal and meta- 

 carpal bones, and four fingers. They are, however, 

 much flattened in their planes, and their articulations 

 have little motion upon each other, though their car- 

 tilaginous unions give them much pliability, and they 

 have very powerful motion at the shoulder joint. 

 These swimming paws, from the office they perform, 

 can obviously act most effectively by being situated 

 near the centre of gravity of the whole mass ; but as 

 the neck is very short, they are near the anterior 

 portion of the spine ; and thus, as the whole of the 

 spine, from their position backwards, is efficient as an 

 organ of motion, this organ would have no fulcrum 

 at all competent to give origin to its powerful action, 

 if there were no more in advance of the insertion of 

 the paws than the short neck and a head of the ordi- 

 nary size. To make up for this, the bones of the 

 jaws are produced to a much greater extent in pro- 

 portion than they are in any of the mammalia, with 

 the exception of the cachalots or spermaceti whales. 

 The organs of the senses are situated far backwards 

 in this great production of the head ; but as it does 

 not appear that smell or even taste is exercised in 

 the feeding, the eyes, which are the most efficient 



