OEDEE OF CETACEA. 35 



eminence, in wliich are pierced the orifices of the two spiracles 

 or blow-holes. The mouth is enormous ; it is prolonged to a 

 point beneath the upper orifices of the blow-holes, and extends 

 almost as far as the base of the flipper. The interior of this 

 •mouth is so vast that, in a Whale which did not quite measure 

 twenty-four metres in length, two men could stand upright. 



This mouth, the interior of which sometimes attains to three 

 metres in breadth and four in height, has no teeth. It has on the 

 upper jaw long, narrow blades, which are called flakes or plates 

 of baleen (whalebone) . 



Each flake is flattened, and rather resembles, in its curve, the 

 blade of a scythe. It is inflected in the direction of its length, 

 diminishing gradually in height and thickness, and terminating in 

 a point. Its concave side is shaped like the edge of a scythe, 

 and is split into hairs, which form a long and tufted sort of 

 fringe. 



The whalebone plates are generally black, streaked with 

 colours of a lighter tint. It is not rare to find plates of whale- 

 bone five metres long, and the mouth of the Whale generally 

 contains seven hundred of these plates. What is called in the 

 trade tvhalebone, is nothing but one of these flakes. The value of 

 the whalebone furnished by each Whale is not less than from 

 £160 to £200. 



This gigantic mouth — toothless, but richly provided with organs 

 that replace them — contains an enormous tongue, which is some- 

 times as much eight metres in length and foui' metres in breadth. 

 This is like a thick mattress — soft, full of grease, and which pro- 

 duces from five to six barrels of oil. 



The eye of the animal is placed, oddly enough, immediately 

 above the commissure, or point of union, of the lips, and, conse- 

 quently, very near the shoulder. There' is a very great space 

 between the two eyes, so that either eye can only see the objects 

 on its own side of the animal. This organ is, however, set in a 

 kind of small convexity, which, rising above the surface of the 

 lips, allows the animal to see with both of its eyes an object at a 

 little distance. 



But what is strange, is the smallness of this eye, which it is 

 often almost difiicidt to discover. It is provided with eyelids, Hke 

 the eyes of other Mammalia ; but these eyelids, improvided with 



d2 



