THE WHALE AND 



Propellers and Instruments of Defense. Measui'emeuts. 



Its propellers and means of defense are two 

 fins, planted a little behind the head on each 

 side, and the flukes of its tail, also, with which 

 it sculls and attempts to strike its enemy. The 

 juncture of these flukes with the main body of 

 the whale is comparatively small, and a skillful 

 whaler always tries to cut the tendons, like a 

 hamstring, with his spade when the whale is 

 violent. If successful in this, the flukes will be 

 still, and the danger of approaching the whale 

 greatly diminished. The natural working of 

 them on their joints by the waves, after the 

 animal is dead, will always carry the carcass 

 directly to windward. 



Of one that I have measured, the fins were 

 five feet long each, and the flukes twelve feet 

 across, horizontally. Of another the body was 

 thirty-nine feet long and nineteen feet round, 

 the head seven feet from its tip to the spout 

 holes, three feet wide just behind the same, and 

 three feet from the upper outside superficies to 

 the roof of the mouth inside, making its entire 

 head, with the mouth closed, seven feet in diam- 

 eter, or twenty-one feet round. The length of 

 another, which I have exactly measured, a sperm 

 whale, was fifty-nine feet, and thirty round. 



