GREAT MYSTICETE. 479 



fisheries had reduced the number of the species, 

 it was no very uncommon circumstance to find 

 specimens of an hundred feet in length, or even 

 longer. Such however are now very rarely seen, 

 and it is not often that they are found of more 

 than sixty or seventy feet long. In its general ap- 

 pearance this animal is peculiarly uncouth; the 

 head constituting nearl}^ a third of the whole 

 mass : the mouth is of prodigious amplitude ; the 

 tongue measuring eighteen or twenty feet in 

 length : the eyes are most disproportionably small: 

 in the upper jaw is a vast number of very long 

 and broad horny lamina, disposed in regular series 

 along each side: these are popularly known by 

 the name of whalebone : on the top of the head is 

 a double fistula or spout-hole through which the 

 enormous animal discharges water at intervals, 

 causing the appearance of a marine jet d'eau as- 

 cending to a vast height in the air. Its common 

 colour is black above and white beneath, but in 

 this circumstance it is known to vary. Its gene- 

 ral residence is in the northern seas, where it has 

 long constituted the principal trade of the w^iale 

 or oil fishery. Its food is supposed to consist 

 chiefly of difterent kinds of Sepife, MedusiB, and 

 other marine Mollusca. 



To the above general description of this mon- 

 ster of the deep, I shall annex the account given 

 by that faithful writer Frederick Martens, in his 

 work intitled A Voyage to Spitzhergen, I shall 

 however take the liberty to give the narrative a 

 somewhat more connected and regular form than 



