132 THF, OCEAN. 



11,000Z. It is, therefore, well worth our considera- 

 tion, and the more particularly, because in its struc- 

 ture and habits there are more than ordinary evidences 

 of that gracious forethought and contrivance, the 

 tracing of which makes the study of nature so in- 

 structive. The Greenland Whale has no aftinity with 

 fishes ; it is as much a mammal as the ox or the 

 elephant, having warm blood, breathing air, bringing 

 forth living young, and suckling them with true 

 milk. It inhabits the Polar Seas, beyond which 

 there is no satisfactory proof that it has ever been 

 seen. Its length is from fifty to sixty feet, when 

 full grown ; perhaps, in extremely rare cases, seventy 

 feet ; all statements giving it a greater length than 

 this, either refer to other species, such as the great 

 Eorqual, or are gross exaggerations. The form is 

 rather clumsy, the head being very large, and the 

 mouth reaching to scarcely less than a fourth of the 

 total length of the animal. The gullet is so small as 

 not to admit the passage of a fish so large as a 

 herring ; hence its support is derived from creatures 

 of very small bulk, and apparently insignificant, such 

 as shrimps, sea slugs, sea blubbers, and animalcules 

 stiU smaller, which I will presently notice. But 

 how does it secure its minute and almost invisible 

 prey ? for without some express provision, these 

 atoms would be quite lost in the cavity of its 

 capacious mouth, unless swallowed promiscuously 

 with the water, which would fill the stomach before 

 a hundredth part of the meal was obtained. There 

 is a very peculiar contrivance to meet this exigency ; 

 the mouth has no teeth, but from each upper jaw 



