PECULIARITIES CONNECTED WITH THE WHALE. 143 



creatures distinct from both fishes and land animals, though 

 partaking of the characters of both. They are classed in the 

 order of warm-blooded Mammalia, that is to say, tney breathe 

 as the land Mammalia, and yet are as completely aquatic as 

 true fish, which are cold-blooded. Fish never breathe, and 

 if removed from the water into the air, they immediately die ; 

 but whales, if deprived of air, and confined under the water, 

 would be literally drowned. They usually come to the sur- 

 face to breathe at intervals of eight or ten minutes, but they 

 are capable of remaining under water nearly an hour. The 

 whale has no gills, but a heart with two ventricles or cells, 

 and very elastic lungs in a great bony chest, into which the 

 air is freely admitted, not through the mouth ; for, although 

 the animal is of such prodigious dimensions (some species at- 

 taining upwards of one hundred feet in length, and a weight 

 of nearly as many tons), yet the throat is so small that it 

 could not dispose of a morsel w^hich is swallowed by an ox. 

 Through what are popularly called " blowers " or spiracles, 

 huge nostrils which open on the summit of the head, from 

 eight to twelve inches long, but of small breadth, the whale 

 can send a column of moist vapor forty to fifty feet high ; 

 and when this breathing or blowing is performed under the 

 surface of the ocean, a vast quantity of water is also thrown 

 into the air, and the noise made in this operation can, it is 

 said, be heard at the distance of between two and three 

 miles. 



Another peculiarity about these wonderful creatures — 

 which belong to the class Cetacea, and which comprises not 

 only all the varieties of the whale tribe, but likewise the 

 grampus, the porpoise, the dolphin, the dugong, amd some 

 others of comparatively very small size — is the tail, which is 

 not vertical as in most fishes, but level, by which they are 

 able to reach the surface of the water with greater facility 

 for the purposes of respiration ; and such is the strength of 

 this tail that even the largest whales are able, with its as- 



