OEDER OF CETACEA. 39 



To keep up life in the wliole of the immense organization of 

 the Whale, to give it strength for its continual motion, to keep up 

 the breath which gives life to these extraordinary creatures, what 

 quantity of aliment, what peculiar food is necessary ? 



This food is composed of but very small creatures. Lacepede 

 says the Whale feeds chiefly on mollusks and crabs. The number 

 of these animals swallowed by the huge Cetacean compensates for 

 their smallness of size. 



According to Dr. Thiercelin, in the whaling- grounds, in spring, 

 and still more in summer, the sea is, in places, of a brown colour. 

 This colour is due to small crustaceans, which are somewhat of the 

 shape of Lobsters, but of which the greatest diameter does not 

 exceed two mrUimetres. These crustaceans form banks of animal 

 matter, which the whalers call boete, and which are ten, fifteen, or 

 twenty leagues in length, by some leagues in breadth, and are 

 three or four metres in thickness. Here is a banquet well served, 

 if not for the size of the prey, at any rate, as far as the mass Avhich 

 constitutes it is concerned ! The Whale wanders up and do\^Ti 

 these rich banks, and browses, as we may say, in this immense and 

 fertile pasturage. 



Dr. Thiercelin gives some details as to the manner in which 

 the Whale seizes its food. 



It lowers its under jaw, spreads its tongue out weU on the 

 lower maxillary plate, and advances gently into the midst of 

 this swarm of minute creatures, which it is about to swallow. 

 The mouth, if such an enormous opening can be called a mouth, 

 then presents an anterior aperture, in shape, that of an irregular 

 triangle, the span of which is from six to seven metres. As the 

 Whale advances, the water which it passes through, and which 

 enters into its mouth, escapes laterally by the intervals which 

 separate the whalebone plates, whilst the boete adheres to the 

 hairs of the whalebone plates, and adheres to the palate. When it has 

 thus passed over a space of from forty to fifty metres, it slackens its 

 pace, raises its lower jaw, applies its lips to the whalebone plates, 

 and distends its tongue in such a way that it occupies the whole 

 of its mouth, now closed. The water escapes through the interstices 

 of the whalebone plates ; the point of the tongue gathers together 

 by a rotatory movement all the animalcula caught on the interior 

 hairs, makes them up into an alimentary bolus, and conveys them 



