of his back is dark and marbled ; bis belly is white ; 

 his throat is very narrow in proportion to his size ; 

 under his backbone lies a long bladder, which he dilates 

 or contracts as he pleases. He rows himself with his 

 tail. They copulate after the manner of land animals, 

 The female brings forth but one or two at a birth, 

 at which time they are nine or ten feet long. They 

 suck for some time : when they are tired with swim- 

 ming, she carries them between her great fins. Under 

 the skin lies the blubber or fat; its usual thickness is 

 about six inches : but about the under lip it is found 

 two or three feet thick ; out of this the oil is extract- 

 ed. One whale ordinarily yields forty or fifty, some- 

 times eighty or ninety hundred weight. 



The use of blubber seems to" be, partly to poise the 

 body and make it equiponderant to the water; partly 

 to keep the water at a distance from the blood, lest it 

 should be chilled by its immediate contact ; and partly 

 to keep the fish warm, by reflecting the hot steams of 

 the body, and so redoubling the heat. 



Under the fat is the tie^h of a reddish colour: their 

 general food is certain small injects, which ft >at upon 

 the water in great heaps, and are no larger than flies ; 

 but they likewise eat various sorts of small fish, parti- 

 cularly herrings, which they drive together in large 

 shoals, and then swallow vast quantities at a tine. The 

 whale commonly goes under the shoal, then opens his 

 mouth, and sucks in all he can. Sometimes he swallows 

 so many that he is ready to burst ? and sets up a hideous 

 roar. 



But he is far more troubled by a slender fish about 

 four feet long, which tears great pieces of flesh out of 

 him. The whale then not only makes a frightful 

 noise, but often leaps a consid ruljk' height. In th i se 

 leaps he sometimes raises himself perp^idicu'ar above 

 the surface of tne water, aid th MI pi ing s hrnself 

 down with such vio.once, thai if h,s ..raJ .tnkt-s any 

 of the hidden rocks tuat are in the shall MVS, he frac- 

 tures his skull ? and comes instantly floating up dead. 

 B 5 



