GREAT MYSTICETE. 479 



had reduced the number of the species, 

 it was no very uncommon circumstance to find 

 specimens of ;m hundred text in length, or even 

 Jollier. Such however are now very rarely seen, 

 and it is not often that they are found of more 

 than sixty orsexcnty feet long. In its general ap- 

 pearance this animal is peculiarly uncouth; the 

 '1 constituting nearly a third of the whole 

 ina^ : the mouth is of prodigious amplitude; the 

 tongue measuring eighteen or twenty feet in 

 length : the eyes arc most disproportionately small : 

 in the upper jaw is a vast number of very long 

 and broad horny lamina 1 , disposed in regular si 

 along each side : these are popularly known by 

 the name of whalebone: on the top of the head i-> 

 a double fistula or spout-hole through which the 

 enormous animal discharges M-ater at intervals, 

 causing the appearance of a marine jet d'eau as- 

 cc nding to a vast height in the air. Its common 

 colour is black above and white beneath, hut in 

 this circumstance it is known to vary. Its gene- 

 ral residence is in the northern seas, where it has 

 ; constituted the principal trade of the whale 

 or oil fishery. Its food is supposed to consist 

 chiefly of dificrcnt kinds of Sepia?, Medusa?, and 

 other marine Mollusca. 



To the above general description of this mon- 

 ster of the deep, I shall annex the account given 

 by that faithful writer Frederick Martens, in hi5 

 \ork intitled A Voyage to Spitsbergen. I shall 

 bowevcr take the liberty t the nai 



somewhat more connected and regular form than 



