ORDER CETACEA. 477 



to top with a sort of disunited bristles, forming a kind of 

 fringe, which is more tufted and longer the more it ap- 

 proaches the extremity of the whalebone. 



The usual colour of these corneous laminae, is a black, 

 marbled with shades of a less deeper hue. Sometimes, 

 however, they are concealed under a grayish epidermis, 

 and then appear to the eye of that colour. In the interior 

 of the mouth of the whale is a bone extending from the end 

 of the muzzle to the entrance of the gullet, and covered by 

 a white and fine substance, to which the name of a gum has 

 been given. Along this bone, on each side, the whalebones 

 are situated with a trifling inclination from front to rear. 

 The base of each of them enters into this gum, traverses 

 it, and penetrates even into the jaw-bone, while the convex 

 part of each lamina is applied against the vault of the 

 palate, which then appears as if bristling with very hard 

 hairs, and the length of which, in passing the lips, forms 

 there a sort of beard, which denomination is frequently 

 given to them. 



As the palate of the Whales is oval, it is easy to conceive 

 that the longest whalebones must be nearest its greatest 

 diameter, and that the shortest must necessarily be situated 

 near the entrance of the throat, and towards the end of the 

 muzzle. 



Some of these laminae are five-and-twenty feet in length ; 

 their base, which penetrates into the gum to the depth of 

 two or four feet, is a foot or a foot and a half in thickness, 

 and on each side of the jaw there are three or four hundred 

 of these laminae. 



Besides these which we have now noticed, there are 

 other laminae of the same description situated under the ex- 

 tremity of the palatal bone, but very small, and couched 

 one upon the other, much in the same style as the scales of 

 the body of the majority of fishes. The use to which nature 

 appears to have destined these laminae, is to prevent the 



