254 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



surpasses in multiplicity the life of the land or the air. These 

 probably form the food of the shrimps and little cuttle-fish, 

 and the narwhals eat the cuttle-fish. 



The narwhal we caught the other day was full of small 

 cuttle-fish, only about a few inches across the spread of their 

 tentacles, and it also held red prawns or shrimps. But the 

 cachalot or sperm whale of the warm seas kills very large 

 cuttle-fish. We dare not say up to what size. I myself 

 have only seen the sperm, after it has been harpooned, eject 

 small cuttle-fish, but large circular marks in their backs, 

 something like Burmese writing magnified, look as if they 

 had been caused by the sucker on the tentacles of enormous 

 cuttle-fish, and wandering grooves over their sides suggest 

 that the parrot-like beak of the cuttle-fish has made its mark. 

 I have seen one of these at least thirty-five feet in length. 

 The contents of the stomach of many of the largest whales 

 in the world, Balsenoptera Sibaldi (Blue) and Balsenoptera 

 Musculus (Finner), which are killed nowadays, consist 

 almost entirely of small shrimps, about one quarter of the 

 size of the common shrimp. On the landing and flensing 

 stage of Alexandra Company in Shetland, after several 

 finner whales have been cut up, I have seen piles of this 

 shrimp food lying on the slip, amounting to several tons 

 in weight, with only, on rare occasions, a few minute fish 

 amongst it all. 



The food of the whale that used to be more common up 

 here, the Right whale, Balsena Mysticetus, is about the size 

 of barleycorns and looks rather like sago with a brownish 

 tint. The whale takes a mouthful of these, plus water, 

 and squeezes the water through the blades of whalebone 

 round the edge of its mouth, each of which has a fringe of 

 hairs on the inside. These hairs, interwoven, make a surface 

 to the palate like that of a cocoanut mat, which makes a 

 perfect strainer. Then the whale swallows the mass of minute 

 crustaceans that is left on its tongue and palate. The tongue 

 is an immense floppy plum-coloured thing like a deflated 

 balloon. I would give much to know exactly how its nerves 

 and muscles act so as to work down the minute food from 

 its palate into the throat. Smaller Finner whales we know 



