224 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



The Greenland whale still retains hip and knee 

 joints with some of its muscles, telling us in un- 

 mistakable terms that the forebears had useful hips 

 and knees, but these bones and muscles in the mod- 

 ern whale are only rudimentary and are as useless 

 to the whale as the aforesaid buttons on the back 

 of a man's frock coat. 



The nostrils, or nose holes of the whale family 

 are simple slits placed on top of its head, there 

 are sometimes two of them and occasionally only 

 one. It is doubtful if they are ever now used as 

 organs of smell, but probably they are simply 

 breathing holes. When the whale breathes, that 

 part of the throat known as the larynx makes a 

 connection with the nostril, thus forming a free 

 passage for the air to the lungs which the water 

 in the mouth of the whale can not enter even when 

 all but the nostrils are under water. 



When the whale exhales the air it sends the 

 vapor out with a rush and the whaler on the look 

 out cries, 



"THERE SHE BLOWS!'' 



It takes millions of myriads of the small molusca 

 crustaceous and jelly-like animals, upon which the 



WHALE-BONED WHALES 



feed, to supply material to build up their huge 

 bodies of oily blubber, but by an ingenious modi- 

 fication of the mouth the whale has contrived a 

 fish net most admirably adapted for the purpose 

 of capturing the small shell-fish, shrimp and jelly- 



