How Whales Breathe. j'j 



either very defective or practically absent. The olfactory nerves, 

 in fact, degenerate in all Cetaceans except the great baleen 

 whales, the nasal chambers and passages being modified, as we 

 have seen, for the peculiar respiration characteristic of these 

 aquatic mammals. 



Pennant in his "British Zoology" remarks that whales 

 " like land animals, breathe by means of lungs, being destitute 

 of gills. This obliges them to rise frequently to the surface of 

 the water to respire, to sleep on the surface, as well as to perform 

 several other functions." In the eyes of the law whales are still 

 regarded as fish, and along with the sturgeon are, in Britain, 

 named " Royal fish," and belong to the sovereign, in accordance 

 with an old Act of Edward the Second, which runs " Itemhabet 

 varectum maris per totum regnum Ballenas et Sturgiones captos 

 etc.," so that when accidentally stranded or captured on British 

 shores, " the king and queen divided the spoil," as Pennant 

 quaintly adds: ''the king asserting his right to the head, her 

 majesty to the tail." Nor was the Queen's share to be altogether 

 despised if Frederick Marten's opinion is to be trusted. " The 

 flesh of the whale is coarse and leathery" he wrote, about three, 

 hundred years ago, " but somewhat resembles that of the ox . . . 

 . . . the flesh of the tail is softer." It is not the object of these 

 notes, however, to determine the culinary excellencies of the 

 whale, but to refer simply to certain striking features in the res- 

 piration of these gigantic creatures. 



