THE LARGER NORTH AMERICAN MAMMALS 



469 



ported by the Eskimos to have uttered curious 

 squeaking noises when they attacked and killed 

 it — an interesting fact, as the beluga is said to 

 be the only member of the whale family to 

 make vocal sounds of any kind. 



When a school has its curiosity aroused by 

 the approach of a boat or for any other cause, 

 the members often raise their heads well out 

 of water, one after the other, and take a de- 

 liberate look, then dive and swim to a safe 

 distance before coming up again. 



The small size of the beluga has long saved 

 it from organized pursuit. Recently it has been 

 announced that its skin has become valuable 

 for commercial purposes, and that many are 

 being killed. If this continues, these harmless 

 and interesting animals are likely soon to dis- 

 appear from most of their present haunts, 

 unless proper measures can be taken to protect 

 them from undue killing. 



GREENLAND RIGHT WHALE, OR 

 BOWHEAD (Balaena mysticetus) 



The Greenland right whale is one of the 

 largest of sea mammals, reaching a length of 

 from 50 to 60 feet, and has a marvelously 

 specialized development. Its enormous head 

 comprises about one-third of the total length, 

 with a gigantic mouth provided with about 400 

 long, narrow plates of baleen, or whalebone, 

 attached at one end and hanging in overlapping 

 series from the roof of the mouth. These thin 

 plates of baleen rarely exceed a foot in width 

 and are from 2 to over 10 feet long. One edge 

 and the free end of each plate is bordered with 

 a stiff hairlike fringe. 



The northern seas frequented by these whales 

 swarm with small, almost microscopic, crus- 

 taceans and other minute pelagic life, which is 

 commonly so abundant that great areas of the 

 ocean are tinged by them to a deep brown. 

 These gatherings of small animal life are called 

 "brit" by the whalers and furnish the food 

 supply of the bowhead. The whale swims 

 slowly through the sea with its mouth open, 

 straining the water through the fringed whale- 

 bone plates on each side of its mouth, thus re- 

 taining on its enormous fleshy tongue a mass 

 of "brit," which is swallowed through a gullet 

 extraordinarily small in comparison with the 

 size of the mouth. Among all the animal life 

 on the earth there is not a more perfectly de- 

 veloped apparatus provided for feeding on 

 highly specialized food than that possessed by 

 the right whale — one of the hugest of beasts 

 and feeding on some of the smallest of ani- 

 mals, untold numbers of which are required 

 for a single mouthful. 



The bowhead is a circumpolar species, which 

 in summer frequents the Arctic ice pack and 

 its borders, and on the approach of winter mi- 

 grates to a more southerly latitude. For cen- 

 turies this huge mammal has formed the main 

 basis for the whaling industry in far northern 

 waters, first in the Greenlqnd seas and later 

 through Bering Straits into the Arctic basin 

 north of the shores of Siberia and Alaska. 



Each large whale is a prize worth winning, 

 since it may yield as much as 200 barrels of oil 

 and several thousand pounds of whalebone. 

 All know of the rise and fall of the whaling 

 business, on which many fortunes were built 

 and on which depended the prosperity of sev- 

 eral New England towns. 



Whaling served to train a hardy and cour- 

 ageous generation of sailors the like of which 

 can nowhere be found today. They braved the 

 perils of icy seas in scurvy-ridden ships, and 

 when fortune favored brought to port full car- 

 goes of "bone" and oil, which well repaid the 

 hardships endured in their capture. Many a 

 ship and crew sailed into the North in pursuit 

 of these habitants of the icy sea never to re- 

 turn. 



Interest in the brave and romantic life of the 

 whalers still exists, though the most pictur- 

 esque quality of their calling passed with the 

 advent of steam whalers and the "bomb gun," 

 which shoots an explosive charge into the 

 whale and kills it without the exciting struggle 

 which once attended such a capture by open 

 boats. 



It has been well said that no people ever ad- 

 vanced in the scale of civilization without the 

 use of some artificial illuminant at night. The 

 world owes a great debt to the right whale and 

 its relatives for their contribution to the "mid- 

 night oil," which encouraged learning through 

 the centuries preceding the discovery of min- 

 eral oil. It also furnished the whalebone which 

 built up the "stays" so dear to the hearts of 

 our great-grandmothers. 



The female right whale has a single young, 

 which she suckles and keeps with her for about 

 a year. She shows much maternal affection, 

 and a number of cases are recorded in which 

 the mother persisted in trying to release her 

 young after it had been harpooned and killed. 



Every year, as the pack ice breaks up for the 

 season, the bowheads move north through 

 Bering Straits. As late as 1881 Eskimos along 

 the Arctic coast of Alaska put to sea in walrus- 

 hide umiaks, armed with primitive bone-pointed 

 spears, seal-skin floats, and flint-pointed lances 

 for the capture of these huge beasts. These 

 fearless sea hunters, with their equipment 

 handed down from the Stone Age, were suffi- 

 ciently successful in their chase to cause trad- 

 ing schooners to make a practice of visiting the 

 villages along the coast to buy their whale- 

 bone. 



From one of the whaling ships encountered 

 north of Bering Straits the summer of 1881 

 we secured a harpoon, taken from a bowhead 

 in those waters, bearing a private mark which 

 proved that it came from a whaling ship on 

 the Greenland coast, thus showing conclusively 

 that these whales in their wanderings make the 

 "Northwest Passage." 



Persistent hunting through the centuries has 

 vastly decreased whales of all valued species, 

 and the modern steam whaler is hastening their 

 end. Their only hope of survival lies in wise 

 international action, and it is urgent that this 

 be secured in time. 



