SOME BRITISH WHALES. 269 



beauty of the mouth-structure. " Opening 

 its huge mouth," says Professor Huxley, " and 

 allowing the sea-water, with its multitudinous 

 tenants, to fill the oral cavity, the whale shuts 

 the lower jaw upon the baleen plates, and, 

 straining out the water through them, swallows 

 the prey stranded upon its vast tongue." 



One of the most important of the British 

 species is the Greenland Right-whale, a huge 

 creature, which amply rewards the Whaler with 

 a large supply of oil and whalebone, when he is 

 fortunate enough to fall in with it. It haunts 

 the cold water of the polar ice-fields, though, 

 in severe winters, it travels to the far south. 

 Although a rare visitant to European coasts, 

 whales of this species have occurred off Yar- 

 mouth and in the Tyne, whilst others are said 

 to have run aground on the Western Isles. On 

 the shores of Greenland it was once plentiful ; 

 but here and at Spitzbergen it has been almost 

 exterminated by the Whalers. Baffin's Bay and 

 the neighbouring waters now constitute the 

 great whaling grounds, though, after summer- 

 ing here, the Whales move southward to winter 

 and produce their young. The breeding quar- 

 ters are in the bays bordering Labrador ; and 



