654 
VERTEBEATA. 
hanging down from each upper jaw into the cavity of the mouth below, which, to make place for 
them, is also destitute of teeth. When the mouth is shut these plates are inclosed on the outside 
by the upper lip, and the tongue lies between the two roAvs. These plates, which are fastened 
at their base in the roof of the mouth, are hardly more than one-fourth of an inch apart, and 
their inner edges are fringed. This curious device is admirably suited to the wants of the ani- 
mal ; it lives on small marine Crustacea and mollusca, and is said never to take in any thing larger 
than a herring. Indeed, its throat is so small that it cannot swallow larger objects. It swims along 
in the water where myriads of these minute animals are moving and ingulfs a whole shoal of them 
at once. The water is strained off, as by a sieve, through the spaces between the baleen, and is 
discharged at the sides of the mouth, or through the blow-holes, but all the animals, even the 
minutest, remain in the mouth. Thus, by this capacious net, the whale is enabled to make a meal, 
suited to his enormous bulk, though his prey consists of creatures often not larger than insects ! 
Of this family there are several genera. Tlie first is the BAL^NA : Balcena. This includes 
several species, the most important of which is the Right Whale or Greenland Whale, B. 
mysticetus, the B. Greenlanclica of Linnaeus. This has long been an object of pursuit by the whalers, 
and a large fleet of vessels from Europe, mostly English, with many from America, are annually 
dispatched to the north seas for its capture. The largest are near seventy feet long. The tail 
of a large whale measures about twenty or twenty-five feet in breadth and five or six feet in 
length ; by the action of this powerful instrument it can dash off with immense velocity when 
wounded or alarmed, and sometimes with a single blow from it, completely shatters the boat of 
its pursuers. Its pace at ordinary times is about four miles an houi', aud it appears rarely to swim 
at any great depth in the water. At times, for amusement, these enormous creatures will spring 
completely out of the w^ater, and another of their diversions consists in immersing the wdiole body 
perpendicularly and flapping their immense tails on the surface of the w^ater, so as to produce a 
sound that may be heard at a distance of two or three miles. They hear acutely any noise under 
the water, but disregard sounds made in the air. They seldom remain on the surface to blow 
more than two minutes, during which period they bloAv eight or ten times; they then dive for ten 
or fifteen minutes, Avheu they rise again. 
The Greenland Whale is found in most parts of the Arctic seas, but its exact limits are not 
known, as it has probably often been confounded with the other species of Balcena. It is gener- 
ally met with alone or in pairs, excepting when many individuals are attracted to some abundant 
feeding-ground or to a desired locality, such as the vicinity of icebergs. The fishery is principally 
carried on in Baffin's Bay, and by the English, who are calculated to have a capital of at least a 
million sterling embarked in it. The ships reach their stations about the end of April, and im- 
mediately begin looking out for Avhales. As soon as one of these creatures is perceived from the 
mast-head, the boats, of which each ship carries six or seven, are lowered and manned for the pur- 
suit. When one of them arrives sufficiently close to the enormous animal, the harpooner, who 
stands at the head of the boat, plunges his weapon into its body, aud the rowers immediately 
back out of harm's way. The whale suddenly dives down with such velocity that, when he has 
taken a perpendicular direction, he has been known to fracture the bones of his head against the 
bottom at a depth of eight hundred yards ; but more commonly he makes otf for the shelter of 
an ice-field, dragging out with him the line to which the harpoon is fastened, and this passes so 
rapidly over the edge of the boat that it is necessary to keep it constantly wet to prevent its 
taking fire. The lines are usually about four thousand feet in length, but the whale often takes 
out three or four times this length of hue. The wounded whale usually remains under water for 
about half an hour, but sometimes much longer, and an instance is recorded in Avhich the crea^ 
ture was an hour and a half before coming up to breathe. On his reappearance he is again at- 
tacked with harpoons and spears, by which he is soon dispatched, the destruction of one of these 
monsters of the deep rarely taking more than an hour. The body is then towed to the ship's 
side, where the process of Jlensing, or cutting off the blubber and removing the baleen, is performed, 
and when this is completed, the carcass is left to the tender mercies of the white bears, water- 
fowl, and sharks. 
The blubber covers the surface of the whale to a thickness of from eight or ten to twenty 
