SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRLTLSH SEAS- 57 



fish, is given by Captain A. H. Marlcham, in his ' Whahng Cruise to Baffin's 

 Bay.' * 



The usual length of a full-grown Right-whale is about 50 feet ; but Dr. 

 Brown, in his paper on the Cetaceans of the Greenland Seas {P. Z. S., 1868, 

 p. 539), gives the dimensions of one which measured 65 feet. The general 

 colour is black. The mouth occupies about one-third of the entire length, 

 and the baleen is from 10 to 12 feet long; it has been known to reach the 

 great length of 13 ft. 2 in., and 9 in. in width. This baleen, which is found 

 depending from the upper jaw, consists of a number of horny plates, similar 

 in structure to the horn of the rhinoceros, consisting of a fibrous mass 

 glutinated together in the solid portion, and placed transversely along either 

 side of the palate ; they are arranged closely together, with the external edge 

 smooth, and gradually thinning off towards the inner margin, which ends in 

 a fringe of long hair-like fibres : the number of laminae is about 300 on each 

 side.f Captain David Gray, of the Eclipse, an experienced whaler, in a 

 communication to ' Tand and Water,' on December i, 1877, pointed out and 

 first satisfactorily explained the means by which these extraordinary appen- 

 dages are disposed of when the mouth of the Whale is closed. He shows 



* Space will not perniit of more than a passing reference here, but much information as to the rise 

 and progress of the whale-fishery will be found in McCuUoch's ' Dictionary of Commerce,' article 

 "Whale-fishery;" Scammon's 'Marine Mammals of the North-western coast of North America;' 

 Starbuck's ' History of the American Whale Fishery ; ' Mr. C. R. Markhara's ' The Threshold of the 

 Unknown Region ; ' Capt. A. H. Markham's book above referred to ; and above all in Scoresby's 

 excellent works, which have been extensively laid under contribution by nearly all subsequent writers — 

 ' An Account of the Arctic Regions, with a History and Description of the Northern Whale-fishery ' 

 (2 vols., 1820), and ' A Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale-fishery,' in 1822. 



+ Blackstone mentions a curious old feudal law, to the effect "that on the taking of a Whale on 

 the coasts, which is a royal fish, it shall be divided between the king and queen ; the head only being 

 the king's property, and the tail of it the queen's. ' De Slurgione obscrvdur, quod rex ilium habebit 

 integrum : de balcna vera suffi-cit, si rex habeat caput, et regiua caudam.^ The reason of this whimsical 

 division, as assigned by our ancient records, was, to furnish the Queen's wardrobe with whalebone " ! — 

 Blackstone's ' Commentaries,' 1783 edit., vol. i., p. 223. 



