THE GREENLAND WHALE. 



423 



The brain of the Whale is comparatively small ; one of a specimen measuring nineteen 

 feet in length, weighed only three pounds and twelve ounces ; that is one three-thousandth 

 part of the whole body. This is only about two-thirds the weight of the largest human brain. 

 The Porpoises and Dolphins have a larger brain. 



The senses of Whales are considerably beyond our comprehension. With regard to smell, 

 there is reason to believe it has a good degree of this sense. 



The organ of vision is extremely small, comparatively. The largest Whale has an eye 

 not large? than that of an ox. 



The ear is not developed externally. By careful examination in the vicinity of the eye, a 

 minute aperture is found not larger than an eighth of an inch in diameter ; this corresponds 

 to the external ear. 



The young are brought forth in much the same manner as those of land mammals. The 

 period of gestation is supposed to be about nine months. The natural term of life is thought 

 to be from twenty to a hundred years. 



The amount of oil yielded by the larger kind of Whales reaches nearly twenty tons. 



The peculiar substance called ambergris is common to all. It is a secretion produced in 

 the intestines. 



The size of Whales is a subject of much misapprehension. Captain Scoresby says : 



"Of three hundred and twenty-two individuals, in the capture of which I had personally- 

 been concerned, no one, I believe, ever exceeded sixty feet in length— and the largest I 

 measured was fifty -eight." 



The immense bulk of the Whalebone and 

 Sperm Whales is more surprising than their 

 length. 



The Greenland Whale, Northern 

 Whale, or Right Whale, as it is indiffer- 

 ently termed, is an inhabitant of the Northern 

 Seas, where it is still found in great abundance, 

 although the constant persecutions to which it 

 has been subjected have considerably thinned 

 its numbers. 



This animal is, when full-grown, about 

 sixty or seventy feet in length, and its girth 

 about thirty or forty feet. Its color is velvety 

 black upon the upper part of the body, the 

 tins and the tail ; gray upon the junction of the tail with the body and the base of the tins, and 

 white upon the abdomen and the fore-part of the lower jaw. The velvety aspect of the body is 

 caused by the oil which exudes from the epidermis, and aids in destroying the friction of the 

 water. Its head is remarkably large, being about one-third of the length of the entire bulk. 

 The jaw opens very far back, and in a large Whale is about sixteen feet in length, seven feet 

 wide, and ten or twelve feet in height, affording space, as has quaintly been remarked, for a 

 jolly-boat and her crew to float in. 



The most curious part of the jaw and its structure is the remarkable substance which 

 is popularly known by the name of Whalebone. This substance is represented in its 

 natural position in the accompanying illustration, which is taken from a photographic 

 portrait of the skeleton in the great Museum of Comparative Anatomy at the Jardin des 

 Plantes. 



The Whalebone, or baleen, is found in a series of plates, thick and solid at the insertion 

 into the jaw, and splitting at the extremity into a multitude of hair-like fringes. On each 

 side of the jaw there are more than three hundred of these plates, which in a fine specimen 

 are about ten or twelve feet long, and eleven inches wide at their base. The weight of baleen 

 which is furnished by a large Whale is about one ton. This substance does not take its origin 

 directly from the gum, but from a peculiar vascular formation which rests upon it. These 



SKULL OP GREENLAND WHALE. 



(To show the Whalebone.) 



