ANATOMY OF THE WHALE. 149 
“ suckers,”, may,indeed, be hoistedupon deck; and 
it is in their case only, that I have had the chance 
of inspecting them entirely out of the water. 
The head of the whale now taken was hoisted on 
board in a mass ; and the body, when stripped of 
the fat, was so small, as to be quite within the 
powers of our tackles. Some new facts, respect¬ 
ing the anatomy of the whale, arose out of the in¬ 
vestigation of this and another of the species 
killed in the summer of 1821, which I shall now 
attempt to describe. The following measure¬ 
ments and weight, it must be observed, all refer 
to a sucking whale, that at the time of capture 
was under maternal protection ; but the other de¬ 
tails, in general, may be considered as applying 
to the whole species of the Balama mysticetus. 
This whale, though a “ sucker,” was 19 feet in 
length, and 14 feet ,5 inches in circumference, at 
the thickest part of the body. The external skin, 
consisting of cuticle and retc mucosum, was, on 
the body, an inch and three-quarters thick, being 
about twice the thickness of the same membranes 
in a full grown animal. The blubber, on an aver¬ 
age, was 5 inches in thickness. The largest of 
the whalebone measured only 12 inches; about 
onc-lialf of which was imbedded in the gum. The 
external part of these fringes, not exceeding 6 in¬ 
ches in length, did not seem sufficient to enable 
