144 WONDERFUL POWER IN THE TAIL. 



sistance, to force themselves entirely out of the water ; in 

 the large whales the surface of the tail comprises from eighty 

 to one hundred square feet. In length it is only from five 

 to six feet, but in width it measures from eighteen to twenty- 

 six feet. 



Providence has given this immense power to serve as a de- 

 fense, as well as a means of propulsion, to the huge ani- 

 mal, for the tail is nearly the sole instrument of its protec- 

 tion. With one stroke of it the whale will send a large boat 

 with its crew into the air, and shatter the wood into a thou- 

 sand pieces. The tail enables the animal to rise in the water 

 by striking a few slight blows with it downwards, when th& 

 head is naturally carried in an opposite direction, and when 

 the whale wishes to sink, a few similar strokes with the tail 

 upwards at once serve to bury the head beneath the surface. 



Sometimes the animal takes a perpendicular position in 

 the water, with the head downwards, and, rearing the tail on 

 high, beats the waves with fearful violence. On these occa- 

 sions the sea foams for a wide space around, and the lashing 

 is heard at a great distance, like the roar of a tempest. This 

 performance is called by the sailors " lob-tailing. '' 



The head is of enormous size, being about one-third of the 

 entire bulk of the whale, and the lips, nearly twenty feet 

 long in some species, show a cavity large enough to hold a 

 ship's jolly-boat and crew ; but, as I observed before, the 

 throat is very narrow. It is stated to be no more than an 

 inch and a half in diameter even in a large whale, so that only 

 very small animals can pass through it. The basis of the 

 head consists of the crown-bone from each side of which de- 

 scend the immense jaw-bones, from sixteen to twenty feet in 

 length, extending along the mouth in a curved line until 

 they meet and form a kind of crescent. 



In the Arctic seas whales find an abundance of food in the 

 shape of animalculae, several species of marine worms, jelly- 

 fish, crabs, and especially shrimps, which abound in those 



