A CAPTURED WHALE 225 



like animals upon which to appease its appetite. 

 Once on a time the whale-bone whales had teeth, 

 and the sperm whale still exhibits as formidable a 

 display as a dentist's show-case; but the whale- 

 bone whales having no use for teeth, never take the 

 trouble to cut them, although the little teeth are 

 embedded in their jaws, buried there as the anatom- 

 ical remains of their equally useless hind legs are 

 buried in their bodies. As the balaena gradually 

 changed their habits their huge jaws became modi- 

 fied, what in the roof of a cow's mouth is rough, 

 fleshy ridges, is altered in time to horny, biting 

 ridges in the manatee and becomes whale-bone in 

 the balaena. 



The whales are the only creatures which have 



FINGER NAILS IN THEIR MOUTHS, 



for the whale-bone is practically the same sub- 

 stance as our finger nails and the process of growth 

 is the same. Set about a quarter of an inch apart 

 the whale-bone hangs down from the upper jaws 

 with a smooth horn-like outer surface and thickly 

 fringed with hair-like shreds upon the inner sur- 

 face, and while these whales do not, strictly speak- 

 ing, have "hair on their teeth" they do give an 

 observer that impression. On very large whales 

 as many as three hundred sheets of whale-bone 

 hang down on each side of the jaws. Every man's 

 first desire when he is shown a captured whale 

 seems to be to see if it is possible for the animal 

 to swallow a man. As he steps into the open 



