RIGHT WHALE 



Balaena glacialis. 



This huge inhabitant of the North Atlantic, who has an average 

 length of fifty feet and a girth of thirty or forty, so little resembles 

 any other mammal that it was formerly classed with the fish. Its 

 study by naturalists, however, has shown that the structure of its 

 body and the dependence of its young upon the mother for life and 

 food prove beyond doubt that it is of true mammal type. 



Unquestionable as this is, Nature has done her best to fit this 

 curious creature for existence in the elements supposedly suited to 

 fish alone. She has given him a fishlike shape to enable him to make 

 the best possible speed through the water, she has taken away any 

 hairy covering that might hinder his progress and bestowed instead 

 a thick layer of fat just beneath the skin to protect him from the 



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