280 WHALES 



or whalebone whales. Four species of them may be met 

 in British waters, all distinguished from the right whales 

 of Arctic and Antarctic seas by a vertical fin on the back, 

 whence they are known by whalers technically as ' finners.' 

 The giant of the race is Sibbald's or the Blue Whale, 

 which may be looked for measuring eighty or eighty-five 

 feet in length ; but the common rorqual is the chief game 

 of the Shetland whalers, the bulls averaging about sixty- 

 three feet in length, and the cows sixty-six feet. The 

 blubber of rorquals is far less plentiful than that of the 

 right whales and the cachalot, and their whalebone is 

 inferior in quality to the Greenland article (the cachalot 

 carries no whalebone); but, whereas among all the in- 

 dustrial triumphs of science, no effective substitute has 

 been devised for whalebone, all that can be obtained finds 

 a ready market in Paris. The oil from the blubber all 

 goes to Glasgow. 



There is a fascinating mystery about all the Cetacea, 

 great and less great. How did warm-blooded, air-breath- 

 ing animals find their way into the waters, and why did 

 they remain there? The late Sir William Fowler re- 

 cognised their nearest affinities among the Ungulates or 

 hoofed animals ; and nobody who has visited his Whale 

 Koom at the Museum in South Kensington can doubt 

 the thoroughness of his research. Neither should it be 

 forgotten that, four centuries before the Christian era, 

 Aristotle, who had no mechanical aids to vision, obtained 

 such a profound insight into the scheme of animated 

 nature as to separate the cetaceans from the fishes. But 

 nearly two thousand years had to pass before human 

 intelligence rose to adopt and confirm his judgment. 



It is not good to live near a whale-fishing station. The 



