58 
MAMMALIA. 
races of these marine Mammalia will be totally destroyed by this 
mode of attack. 
To complete our account of the whaling procedure we must say 
something about the cutting up of the .animal, and of the melting 
down of the blubber into oil. 
When the Whale is dead it is made fast alongside of the ship, 
belly upwards, its tail forwards and its nose level with the stern of 
the vessel. It is not without great difficulty that this enormous 
mass, which just now traversed the sea with such facility, can be 
towed so as to be landed on the shore. 
In olden times the fishermen of the north of Europe used to cut 
up the Whale by going upon its carcass, provided with boots 
furnished with cramp-irons. They thus stripped off bands of 
blubber along the whole length of the animal, from head to tail. 
But this way of cutting up the Whale was long, difficult, and even 
dangerous. 
The whalers in the Southern Ocean have a better way of 
proceeding : this consists in cutting out, ;along the whole length of 
the animal’s body, a broad continuous band shaped like a screw, 
beginning at the head and only finishing at the tail, very nearly 
in the same way in which children proceed when they are taking 
off the peel of an orange. 
Dr. Thiercelin relates in great detail the operation of cutting up, 
upon which we are unable to dwell longer here. Suffice it to say 
that they sap, by means of sharp spades, one side of the under 
lip>, and that they take away this part ; that they then detach the 
tongue, which weighs many thousands of kilogrammes ; then the 
other half of the lip; next the upper jaw, with its whalebone 
plates, which jare becoming more and more sought after in 
commerce every day. Then they Begin to cut a thick band of 
grease and skin, which they keep on detaching, hawling up on 
board, and stowing away. It is thus that they unwind, as we 
may say, the Whale, making its body turn round on itself. In 
the background of Fig. 17 (page 56) which represents the pursuit 
of the Whale, we see the operation .of cutting up in pieces going 
on on board of another ship. 
In the southern seas the carcass is no sooner cast off and set 
adrift from the ship than it is literally covered with birds, par- 
ticularly Petrels and Albatrosses. The Sharks come also and take 
