166 The Story of the New England Whalers 



upper jaw are slabs of a hornlike substance 

 called whalebone. In the largest whale, slabs 

 more than twelve feet long are found. Captain 

 David Gray, of Peterhead, Scotland, a noted 

 authority, counted 286 slabs of bone on one side 

 of the mouth of a whale he killed and 289 on 

 the other side. There seems to be no regularity 

 in the number of slabs; other whalers who have 

 counted them find a different number with every 

 count. When the whale's mouth is closed these 

 slabs are slanted back, lying like piles of thin 

 boards between the upper and lower jaws. When 

 the mouth is opened, the lower ends of the slabs 

 spring forward until they hang almost, but not 

 quite, perpendicular along the sides of the mouth, 

 where they form a screen. The inner edge of 

 each slab is frayed and split into many long 

 hairs and these cover over and fill in the spaces 

 between the solid parts of the slabs, thus con- 

 verting a coarse screen into a fine sieve. The 

 lower lip supports and holds in place the lower 

 edge of this sieve, while the upper lip is drawn 

 up in a horrible grin, that fully displays the huge 

 slabs. 



