34 FISHES I HAVE KNOWN 



everything anatomically being on a huge scale, as, 

 for instance, the sperm's heart and aorta (the 

 principal blood-vessel), which are too big for 

 immersion in a very capacious tub. 



Beneath the smooth, naked skin lies a layer of 

 blubber, ten to twenty inches thick, which keeps 

 them buoyant in the ocean and warm in hyper- 

 borean regions, and, like a thick india-rubber 

 fender, enables them to bear the enormous pres- 

 sure of the superincumbent water at depths of 

 4,800 feet — a weight of 200,000 tons to each 

 individual whale ! ' 



Their brain is small, their ears are remarkably 

 sensitive to distant sound even when they are 

 under water, their eyes small but sufficient for 

 their requirements, the lids having the comical 

 power of opening and shutting, in fact, of winking. 

 The whale's sense of smell is probably slight, and 

 the nostrils are closed at will by a kind of muscular 

 cone to keep out the water. 



As to size. Dr. Scoresby records the length of 

 his biggest " right " or whalebone whale to have 

 been seventy feet ; but the sperm whale is often 

 eighty to ninety-five feet long, the rorqual a 



■ They have been known to " sound," or di\-e, with 

 12,000 feet of line attached to them — a very great en- 

 cumbrance. 



