WHALES. 



ft 





GREENLAND WHALE. Balaeaa mystlcetus. 



WHALES. 



THE CETACEA, or WHALES, are more thoroughly aquatic than any other animals which 

 have already been described, and are consequently framed in such a very fish-like man- 

 ner that they have generally been considered as fishes by those who were but little ac- 

 quainted with the animal kingdom. The entire livelihood of the Whale is obtained in 

 the waters, and their entire structure is only fitted for traversing the waves, so that if 

 they should happen to be cast upon the shore they have no means of regaining their 

 native element and are sure to perish miserably from hunger. 



With the seals, the young are produced upon the land, and there nurtured until they 

 have attained sufficient strength to enable them to cope successfully with the sea waves 

 and are, moreover, attended in their marine excursions by their mothers, who exercise 

 a watchful guard over their offspring. But the young Whale knows no such terrestrial 

 nurture, but is at once received into the bosom of the ocean, being capable from its very 

 birth of accompanying its parent in her paths through the waves. 



Although the Whales bear so close a resemblance to the fish, and are able to pass a 

 considerable time below the water, they possess no gills through which they may respire 

 and renew their blood through the agency of water, but breathe atmospheric air in the 

 same manner as the other mammalia. If a Whale were to be detained below the surface 

 of the water for too long a period it would be inevitably drowned, a fact which was once 

 curiously exemplified by the death of a Whale which had entangled itself in a rope 

 fastened to a dead and sunken Whale, and which was found drowned when the rope was 

 drawn to the surface. No injury had been inflicted upon the animal, but it had not been 



