THE ARCTIC SEAS. 145 
a single year, and one cargo has been known to yield 
11,0002. It is, therefore, well worth our considera- 
tion, and the more particularly, because in its struc- 
ture and habits there are more than ordinary evi- 
dences of that gracious forethought and contrivance, 
the tracing of which makes the study of nature so 
instructive. The Greenland Whale has no affinity 
with fishes; it is as much a mammal as the ox or the 
elephant, having warm blood, breathing air, bringing 
forth living young, and suckling them with true 
milk. It inhabits the Polar Seas, beyond which 
there is no satisfactory proof that it has ever been 
seen. Its length is from fifty to sixty feet, when 
full grown; perhaps, in extremely rare cases, seventy 
feet; all statements giving it a greater length than 
this, either refer to other species, such as the great 
Rorqual, or are gross exaggerations. The form is 
rather clumsy, the head being very large, and the 
mouth reaching to scarcely less than a fourth of the 
total length of the animal. The gullet is so small as 
not to admit the passage of a fish so large as a her- 
ring; hence its support is derived from creatures of 
very small bulk, and apparently insignificant, such 
as shrimps, sea slugs, sea blubbers, and animalcules 
still smaller, which I will presently notice. But 
how does it secure its minute and almost invisible 
prey? for without some express provision, these 
atoms would be quite lost in the cavity of its 
capacious mouth, unless swallowed promiscuously 
with the water, which would fill the stomach be- 
fore a hundredth part of the meal was obtained. 
There is a very peculiar contrivance to meet this 
10 N 
