378 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



graphical anatomy, the internal structure of these ponderous 

 creatures is highly interesting and instructive, but our space will 

 admit of none of it here. But it will be proper to note, however, 

 that, with but few exceptions, all Whales have teeth, and that 

 these vary greatly in number ; never being preceded by a milk set, 

 while in the adult right whales in which family the teeth are ab- 

 sent, the well-known whalebone is seen (baleen). It would be as 

 well to remark, too, that the mammse in the female Whales are 

 situated on either side of the genital fissure, being two in num- 

 ber, and each being under the control of a special compressor 

 muscle by means of which the milk of the mother can be injected 

 into the mouth of her young one (there being rarely two), and the 

 latter is thus enabled to nurse under water. 



Whales of all species subsist on animal food of some kind or 

 other, such as for example, fish, squids, crustaceans, and the me- 

 dusae. The Killers (Orca) alone prey upon the species of their 

 own order, and upon such other warm-blooded animals as seals 

 and their kind. 



During a year that I spent at sea in the Gulf of Mexico and the 

 South Atlantic, I had many opportunities to observe the various 

 kinds of whales and porpoises, which I availed myself of to the 

 fullest extent, and have seen an old Sperm whale blow many and 

 many a time. Professor Flower well describes this act and ac- 

 cording to this eminent authority, when speaking of what a help- 

 less creature a whale is on shore, he says that when in their ele- 

 ment, the sea, " they have, however, to rise very frequently to the 

 surface for the purpose of respiration; and, in relation to the 

 constant upward and downward movement in the water thus 

 necessitated, their principal instrument of motion, the tail, is ex- 

 panded horizontally, quite unlike that of a fish, whose move- 

 ments are mainly in straightforward or lateral directions. The 

 position of the respiratory orifice or nostril on the highest part of 

 the head is very important for this mode of life, as it is the only 

 part of the body the exposure of which above the surface is ab- 

 solutely necessary. Of the numerous erroneous ideas connected 

 with natural history, few are so widespread and still so firmly be- 

 lieved, notwithstanding repeated expositions of its falsity, as 

 that the Cetacea spout out through their blowholes water taken 

 in at the mouth. The fact is, the ' spouting,' or more properly 

 < blowing,' of the Whale is nothing more than the ordinary act of 

 expiration, which taking place at longer intervals than in land 



