WHALES AT HOME. 



425 



never hesitate to gobble them up as 

 greedily as if they belonged to some other 

 family altogether. From this indiscrimi- 

 nate appetite all whales are free. Indeed, 

 some of them, such as the valuable 

 right whale, are more innocent still. They 

 live upon the uncountable myriads of 

 tiny shell-fish which abound in Arctic seas, 

 staining the water in lines of pink and red, 

 eac^h, line varying from a few feet to 

 hundreds of yards in width, and extending 

 much farther than the. eye can reach. When 

 sailing among this " whale-feed," as the 

 whale-fishery call it, a bucket dipped over the 

 side will bring up a most interesting popu- 

 lation for an ac^uarium. The little crab or 

 lobster-like organisms, none measuring an 

 inch across, swim vigorously about, feeding 

 in their turn upon some living things in the 

 water so tiny that they are invisible to the 

 unassisted eye. It never fails to impress 

 the minds of all but the most brutish on 

 what an infinite scale the population of 

 the sea is arranged when all these eager, 

 hungry Crustacea can be fed continually, 

 even though their numbers are only com- 

 parable to those of the grains of sand in the 

 deserts of the world. 



Among these feeble folk, then, the great 

 placid right whale propels himself by gentle 

 up and down strokes of a tail that would 

 carpet a good-sized room if it were spread 

 upon the floor. His mouth is of most 

 peculiar shape, the lower jaw (by far the 

 larger of the two) resembling a mammoth 



Vol. xxvi, — 54k 



coal-scoop, and large enough in the full- 

 grown animal to conceal from twenty to 

 thirty men. The upper jaw is not at all 

 unlike the u{)per mandible of a bird, and 

 closes down u[)on the vast chasm beneath it 

 like an oddly-shaped trap-door. From the 

 sides of this curved and pointed beak de- 

 scend, like so many scythe-blades, plates ot 

 baleen or whalebone, varying in length from 

 a few inches at the point of the jaw to 

 a greatest extent of fifteen feet (in the 

 largest specimens) at the back. Each blade, 

 or "fin" as it is technically termed, is set 

 solidly into a tough white gum which runs 

 round the edge of the upper jaw, but its 

 lower end sweeps freely down into the vast 

 hollow beneath. The blades are set closely 

 side by side, their outer edges being thick as 

 one's finger and thinning off towards the 

 inside until they fray out into coarse threads 

 like very thick horsehair, which fringe so 

 interlaces as to form a perfect sieve that 

 allows nothing to escape. VVhen feeding — and 

 that function goes on almost continuously — 

 the great scoop droops, allowing a flood to 

 pour in and fill the chasm. Then the lips 

 close until only the outer ridges of the sieve 

 are. visible. By raising the spongy mass of the 

 tongue, an organ weighing a ton and a half in 

 the adult, the water is forced out through the 

 meshes of baleen, leaving behind a goodly 

 store of small creatures which may then 

 be swallowed in leisurely fashion. The 

 gullet of this great whale is very small, 

 hardly admitting the closed fist, which 



peculiarity has 

 given rise to the 

 popular fallacy 

 that a — i.e.^ any — 

 whale cannot 

 swallow a herring. 

 Another queer 

 error is traceable 

 to the old whalers, 

 who noticed that 

 this particular 

 whale lived upon 

 small things which 

 he sifted out of 

 the sea, and 

 jumped at the 

 conclusion that 

 the water was ex- 

 pressed or re- 

 jected through 

 the spout-hole at 

 the top of the 

 head. This was 

 proof positive 



HE GKEAT I'LACID RIGUT WHALE. 



