ON THE GEEENLAND RIGHT-WHALE. 71 



As the cortical layer of the whalebone-blades is formed from the surface of the pulp, the 

 medullary tissue must be supposed to be formed from its free edge turned downwards and inwards. 

 The medullary part consists chiefly of horny tubes, the same that on the inner edge of the blade 

 project freely in the shape of bristles, as the cortical layer disappears in this place or is at least 

 partly worn off; and as the pulps of these bristles we have already indicated those soft filaments 

 found on the inner and lower edge of the pulp-blade. These filaments are so numerous that the 

 entire pulp-blade may here be truly said to be quite fringed out in them. In the fin-whales 

 especially we have seen most distinctly that these fibres formed at least three longitudinal rows on 

 the whole extent of the free edge. We have already reminded our readers of the fact that it can 

 never be ascertained beforehand how far a hair-pulp extends into the interior of a hair or bristle ; 

 neither are we in like manner able to state how far these soft filaments extend into the fibres com- 

 posing the medullary tissue of the whalebone-blades. In the rorquals they pass very far into 

 them. In the fin- whale stranded in 1841 on the North point of Zealand the pulp-blades laid bare 

 by the coming off of the horny baleen were seen ; about 400 of them were found on either side, 

 the largest more than two inches high, provided with fibres more than three inches long, floating 

 in the clear water of the sea and presenting a remarkably flne sight.^ Nor is it less instructive 

 when, in a macerated piece of the whalebone of a large fln-whale or of a humpback, the entire pulp 

 can be successfully extracted out of its horny blade without tearing these filaments. We have 

 in this manner found them to be so long in a Greenland humpback that they probably extended 

 halfway into the whalebone blades, which are comparatively speaking very short. As for the rest, 

 it is very easy to see in any given blade of whalebone how far the pulp-blade has extended into it, 

 for it must of course be just so far as the horny baleen-blade is seen to be hollow internally. The 

 same may even be said about the filamentous pulps of the hairs, only that it is necessary for this 

 purpose to lay open the interior of the blade with a knife.^ 



Now to return to the more particular consideration of the whalebone laminæ of the right- 

 whales, and especially those of the Greenland whale. We shall first examine the relation between 

 their horny parts and their pulps, and must direct the attention of our readers to the interesting 

 fact that whereas their horny blades are so greatly superior in length to those of the rorquals, no 

 such corresponding difference is to be found in the length of the pulp-blades, which are, indeed, 

 comparatively speaking, even much shorter. In order to satisfy ourselves on this point we need 

 only examine the whalebone blades of commerce, which even if they are ten, twelve, or more feet 

 long, are only hollow to a depth of about three and a half inches nearest to their broadest end. 

 Now, if we ask hov/ far the hair-pulps are introduced into the blades, and try to answer this 

 question only by examining preparations of dried whalebone, we shall feel inclined to suppose that 

 these soft vascular filaments only penetrate a very short space, especially in the Greenland whale, in 

 the whalebone of which the horny fibres are very fine, and seem only to be hollow to a very short 

 distance from their origin. 



Our rich materials have provided us with very satisfactory information on this question. Yet 

 it is only on the anterior and posterior parts of sides of whalebone belonging to the forty-four feet 

 and a half long skeleton that we have had an opportunity of making the experiment of loosening 



^ ' Kong. Danske. Vidensks. Selskab. Natur, og Math. Afhand,' 12te Deel, p. 358. 

 ^ A beautiful figure of such a preparation from a fin-whale has been given by Rosentbal on the 

 third Plate of his above-mentioned memoir. 



