LECTURE IV. 143 



by the name of Whalebone : each plate is deeply 

 fringed or subdivided at its lower edge into long 

 and slender bristles, by which means the edges of 

 the under jaw are secure from being wounded by 

 it, and at the same time the junction of many 

 rows of bristled or subdivided edges operates as a 

 strainer, when the mouth, after receiving food, 

 suddenly closes, thus retaining the prey, and per- 

 mitting the superfluous water to escape. The 

 principal species of the genus Balana is the B. 

 ^lysticetus or great Whalebone Whale, Mysticet, 

 or common Northern Whale. It is on all hands 

 allowed to be the largest of all animals yet dis- 

 tinctly known. Before the Northern Whale-Fish- 

 eries had reduced the number of this species, it 

 was no uncommon circumstance to find specimens 

 of an hundred, an hundred and twenty, or even, 

 according to some, an hundred and fifty feet in 

 length. Such however- are now very rarely, if 

 ever seen, and it is not often that they are found 

 of more than sixty or seventy feet in length. In 

 its general appearance the animal is peculiarly 

 uncouth ; the head constituting nearly a third of 

 the whole mass: the mouth is of prodigious width, 

 the tongue measuring eighteen or twenty feet in 



