WHALES AND WHALING 



immediately under the skin, and is six inches thick, except 

 that on the under-lip, which generally has a depth of two 

 or three feet. 



The toothless whales are compensated for their want of 

 teeth by the presence of baleen, or " whalebone, 1 ' which is 

 arranged in their mouths in a rather peculiar manner, 

 plates of this valuable substance lying along the palate, 

 their inner edges terminating in fringes of filaments 

 which fall like a curtain over the interior of the mouth, 

 and serve as a strainer to the animal's food ; for, as is well 

 known, the swallowing apparatus of this species is relatively 

 small, the largest fish it can take being a herring. 



Mankind is not the whale's only enemy. As near home 

 as the Hebrides a battle may not infrequently be seen 

 between a whale and a group of "threshers" or fox- 

 sharks. The thresher is about thirteen feet long, and has 

 a very effective weapon in its upper tail-fin, which is as 

 long as its whole body, and with which it can deal a blow 

 of terrific power. Sometimes springing several yards in 

 the air (these creatures can jump as high as a mast-head) 

 it will deal bang after bang on the luckless leviathan, the 

 reports of the blows echoing like rifle-shots. The fisher- 

 men say that there is a secret understanding between this 

 amiable fish and the narwhal, and that while the fox- 

 shark thrashes above, his ally thrusts and stabs below, till 

 between them the whale bleeds to death and affords them 

 a meal or two. 



Another variety of the toothless or baleen whales is 

 the Rorqual, which has a soft back fin and curious 



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