OEDEE 0 E CETACEA. 
35 
eminence, in which are pierced the orifices of the two spiracles 
or blow-holes. The mouth is enormous ; it is prolonged to a 
point beneath the upper orifices of the blow-holes, and extends 
almost as far as the base of the flipper. The interior of this 
mouth is so vast that, in a Whale which did not quite measure 
twenty-four metres in length, two men could stand upright. 
This mouth, the interior of which sometimes attains to three 
metres in breadth and four in height, has no teeth. It has on the 
upper jaw long, narrow blades, which are called flakes or plates 
of baleen (whalebone) . 
Each flake is flattened, and rather resembles, in its curve, the 
blade of a scythe. It is inflected in the direction of its length, 
diminishing gradually in height and thickness, and terminating in 
a point. Its concave side is shaped like the edge of a scythe, 
and is split into hairs, which form a long and tufted sort of 
fringe. 
The whalebone plates are generally black, streaked with 
colours of a lighter tint. It is not rare to find plates of whale- 
bone five metres long, and the mouth of the Whale generally 
contains seven hundred of these plates. What is called in the 
trade whalebone , is nothing but one of these flakes. The value of 
the whalebone furnished by each Whale is not less than from 
<£160 to £200. 
This gigantic mouth — toothless, but richly provided with organs 
that replace them — contains an enormous tongue, which is some- 
times as much eight metres in length and four metres in breadth. 
This is like a thick mattress — soft, full of grease, and which pro- 
duces from five to six barrels of oil. 
The eye of the animal is placed, oddly enough, immediately 
above the commissure, or point of union,, of the lips, and, conse- 
quently, very near the shoulder. There is a very great space 
between the two eyes, so that either eye can only see the objects 
on its own side of the animal. This organ is, however, set in a 
kind of small convexity, s which, rising above the surface of the 
lips, allows the animal to see with both of its eyes an object at a 
little distance. 
But what is strange, is the smallness of this eye, which it is 
often almost difficult to discover. It is provided with eyelids, like 
the eyes of other Mammalia ; but these eyelids, unprovided with 
d 2 
