THE OPEN SEA 81 



the sides of its mouth, while the whalebone 

 plates act as a sieve and prevent the small 

 animals from getting away. The stomach of 

 a dead whale has been found to contain a mass 

 of minute animals so thick that it could only be 

 dug out with a spade. 



The whale has no settled place of abode in 

 the ocean, and its swimming powers enable it 

 to make enormous journeys. Some whales 

 " travel twice a year more than a quarter of the 

 circumference of the globe, being in summer 

 amid the Arctic snows, and in winter on the 

 other side of the equator." They travel mainly 

 in the wake of their food-supply, but as there 

 is a great regularity in the occurrence of the 

 smaller marine organisms, " their journeyings 

 are in general as regular as if they were 

 arranged according to the stars, and as if they 

 took place along laid-out paths bounded on 

 both sides." 



On their journeyings the whales often form 

 troops or " schools," consisting chiefly of females 

 and young ones. The Greenland whale has 

 usually only one young one at a time, which 

 may be over three yards long at birth. The 

 mother gives it suck for about a year, and is 



devotedly attached to it. 

 6 



