GREAT MYSTICETE. 487 



parchment-like skin be white or yellow, tTie thick 

 under skin is of a similar colour. This thick skin 

 is not tough or tenacious, but of a fungous tex- 

 ture, and of no use as an article of trade. 



The food of the Whale is believed to be small 

 sea-snails^, which float, in vast abundance, on 

 the surface of the northern seas. Whether these 

 afford such great nourishment I cannot tell. I 

 have been informed by others that about Hitland 

 a small Whale was caught, which had about a 

 barrel of Herrings in its belly. The middling- 

 sized Whales caught at Spitzbergen afford se- 

 venty, eighty, Or ninety cardels of fat. Our big- 

 gest Whale was fifty-three feet long, and his tail 

 three fathom and a half broad. The Whale swims 

 against the wind, like most of this tribe, and in- 

 deed as most large fishes do. They are sometimes 

 found diseased and emaciated, having their pecu- 

 liar disorders like other animals. The breasts of 

 the female resemble those of a Cow, having simi- 

 lar nipples : they are sometimes white, and some- 

 times speckled with black and blue spots, in the 

 manner of a plover's egg. They are said never 

 to have more than one young at a time. " 



I must now take the opportunity of repeating 

 what I have advanced in the Naturalist's Miscel- 

 lany, viz. 'Mt is to be lamented that in the 

 poetical descriptions of various striking scenes in 

 natural history, the epithets by which many ob- 

 jects are distinguished, are, for want of due know* 



* A species pf CUq, the Clio limacina of Linnaius, 



