His CAPTORS. 57 



The Lip. The Fin. The Bonnet. 



First came one of the huge lips, which, after 

 they had nearly severed close to the creature's 

 eye, was hooked into by what they call a blubber 

 hook, stripped off, and hoisted on board by the 

 windlass. It was very compact and dense, and 

 covered with barnacles like Brobdignag lice. 



Next came one of the fore-fins ; after that 

 the other lip, and then the upper jaw along with 

 all that peculiar substance called whalebone, 

 through which the animal strains his food. It 

 is all fringed with coarse hair that detains the 

 little shrimps and small fry on which the crea- 

 ture feeds. The bones, or, rather, slabs of whale- 

 bone radiate in leaves that lie edgewise to the 

 mouth, from each side of what may be called the 

 ridge-pole of the mouth's roof, forming a house 

 almost big enough for a man to stand up in. Out- 

 side it is crowned with what they call a bonnet, 

 being a crest or comb where there burrow le- 

 gions of barnacles and crabs like rabbits in a war- 

 ren, or insects in the shaggy bark of an old tree. 



Next came the lower jaw and throat, to- 

 gether with the tongue, which latter alone must 

 have weighed fifteen hundred or two thousand 

 pounds ; an enormous mass of fat, not, however, 

 so firm and tough as the blubber. Whalers 



