Most people have seen a large plate of whalebone, dark-tinted or occasionally lighter, and one extremity ending in a fringe of bristle-like hairs. The whalebone blade of dense horny-like material is in the early stage composed of a brush of hair-like bodies, which, lengthening, solidify and assume the hard horny appearance afterwards known in the blade. The gum of the upper jaws has a series of these plates, the one in front of the other, which elongate as growth proceeds, but leave the free extremity with a fringe of separate hairs. Again, the blade towards the gum is embedded in a fleshy substance similar to the roots of our finger-nails. It grows continuously from the roots, like the latter, and in many respects corresponds, save that the free end is always fringed. Baleen, therefore, though varying from a few inches to a number of feet long, in fact approximates to a series of so to say mouth nail-plates, which laminæ have a somewhat transverse position to the cavity of the mouth, and thus their inner split edges and lower free ends cause the mouth to appear as a great hairy archway, shallower in front and deeper behind. The animal in opening its mouth gulps a quantity of water containing its minute marine food, and then closing the mouth the liquid escapes and the small mollusca, &c., are entangled in the hairy meshes. Some of the Whalebone Whales are distinguished as smooth-skinned and as wanting dorsal fins—the family Balænidæ, or Right Whales. Others have either a hump-like protuberance or dorsal fin or a series of longitudinal skin-plaits on the throat—the Balænopteridæ, or Humpbacks, and Rorquals.

GREENLAND OR RIGHT WHALE.

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THE GREENLAND, OR RIGHT WHALE.[250]—Among the Cetacea this, par excellence, may be denominated the Whale, for much of the popular knowledge, interest, and commercial value of the group has centred in this animal. It is the well-known form followed by the Greenland whalers into the Arctic seas. The stories of its hunting and authenticated accounts of its vast size, &c., associate it in many minds as the most typical of the Whale tribe. But the truth is, it is unusual in many respects, and not even quite representative of the group of Whalebone Whales as a whole. Moreover, it is as well at first to take notice of the fact that of the genus Balæna, that to which the term Greenland or Right Whale is applicable is not the only species. For a long time it was believed that this Whale inhabited a very large area of the oceans. Later data, however, go to show that at least five species have existed or still exist, each restricted within a moderately defined area. B. mysticetus reaches from the Gulf of St. Lawrence up Baffin’s Bay and Smith’s Sound, and westwards by Barrow Strait, &c., to the extremity of the North American continent, and descends to Behring Strait, Kamstchatka, and the Sea of Okhotsk. It moreover passes along the Arctic Ocean from Behring Strait to Spitzbergen and the east of Greenland, that is, it has a circum-polar area, in the two points already named descending to lower latitudes.

VIEWS TO ILLUSTRATE POSITION AND STRUCTURE OF BALEEN.
(Modified partly after Eschricht, Owen, Turner, and Prichard.)

A, back of skull of Right Whale, looking into mouth, with w, whalebone, m being maxillary bone of palate, J, lower jaw-bones; B, arch of baleen plates, as seen in cross section of mouth; C, vertical section through gum, palatal, or intermediate substance (is) with (b) three baleen plates springing therefrom; D, whalebone in cross section under the microscope and showing hair-like structure.

THE BISCAY WHALE (B. biscayensis) differs in a proportionally smaller head; shorter, thicker, and more brittle baleen; smoother, thicker skin; and slightly bluish shade of colour. From the eighth to the tenth century the Basque people established a Whale fishery right in the middle of the Atlantic, and even to the beginning of the last century it was known that the same kind of animal was pursued across the Atlantic as far as Florida, and beyond Great Britain towards Iceland. But these hardy seamen followed the Whale with such vigour as to diminish, and, as was believed, drive it within the Arctic circle, an assumption which has disappeared before the knowledge that it differs from the so-called Greenland Whale. Almost between the same parallels in the Pacific Ocean from the American to the Asiatic shores is another—the JAPAN WHALE (B. japonica)—pursued by English, American, and Japanese whalers. This black animal, with a white eye-spot and paler on the chin and belly, has slenderer but equally long baleen, and in certain osteological features is regarded as specifically distinct. Another Whale, the CAPE WHALE (B. australis), ranges from the Cape region across the South Atlantic to the coast of South America below Brazil. While a fifth, the SOUTH PACIFIC WHALE (B. antipodarum), occupies a strip from the South American coast to New Zealand and Australia. The two latter have points in common with the others, and are only distinguished as separate species by supposed structural variations.

The habits of all these animals are exceedingly alike, and only in the first two is there very decided distinction in appearance. Such being the case, we may refer in detail to the Greenland Whale, Bowhead, or great Polar Whale of the Americans. This creature ordinarily attains a length of fifty or sixty or not more than seventy feet. The females are said to be larger and fatter than the males, to produce one or rarely two young ones in the spring, which are suckled for a twelvemonth, and they exhibit a constancy and affection for this offspring not surpassed by any other of the tribe. The bulky body is largest about the middle, tapering rather suddenly towards the tail, the flukes of which are occasionally over twenty feet from tip to tip. The flipper is short and broadish; while the head is a third of the length of the animal. The small eye is placed very low, but nevertheless above the angle of the great arched-mouth. The head is surrounded by a large swelling, at which point the double orifice of the blowhole forms an obtuse angle. The adult is almost black, the young bluish-grey, the lower parts of the throat cream-colour, and occasionally dispersed whitish markings on the body. Gregarious in habit, they go in twos and threes, but sometimes in greater numbers, even in large flocks; but the herds now are indeed rare. Among the most remarkable peculiarities in this Whale are the nature of its food and its mode of feeding. In the high latitudes there floats in immense quantities a small soft-bodied Mollusc (Clio borealis), an inch long, with expansions like wings; and besides it there are numerous small Crustaceans and Jelly-fish of various kinds. These, curiously enough, feed on infinitesimally minute Jelly-specks, Diatomaceæ, &c. These latter thus form subsistence to the former, which in their turn are the Whale’s food; so that, as Dr. Robert Brown has remarked, this enormous marine monster in a secondary manner is sustained by incredible numbers of organisms of which 1,000 or more might be laid on a shilling piece. Captain David Gray, a well-known successful whaler, has given a good account of the mode of feeding. When the animal opens its mouth to feed, the whalebone springs forwards and downwards so as to fill the mouth entirely. When in the act of shutting it again, the whalebone being pointed slightly towards the throat, the lower jaw catches it and carries it up into the hollow of the mouth. They choose a space between two pieces of ice, and swimming backwards and forwards secure the food near the surface. They will continue feeding in this way for hours, afterwards disappearing under the ice to sleep, and again suddenly reappearing as hunger compels them. When the food is submerged ten or fifteen fathoms, after feeding the Whale comes to the surface to breathe, and swallows its mouthful. It then lies still a minute, raises its head partially out of the water, again diving, throwing its tail in the air as it disappears. At such times the whalers successfully harpoon them. Occasionally they are easily captured, but more often are approached with great danger. The periods of surface-breathing and descents in the Right Whale are very different and irregular compared with those of the Sperm Whale. At intervals of from five to fifteen or twenty minutes they rise to breathe, and remain on the surface for about two minutes. Their ordinary rate of travelling is nearly four miles an hour, but if alarmed or wounded their pace is considerably increased. Like the other Whales, they travel head to the wind. They appear to have periods of migration. In May they are found off West Greenland; at the end of June they cross Baffin’s Bay, towards Lancaster Sound and Eclipse Bay, whence in August and September they strike south, and in November or later reach Hudson Strait and the coast of Labrador. It is supposed that the young are produced in these lower latitudes, and in spring the Whales are believed to proceed again northwards. This ordinarily quiet, harmless, but unwieldy creature, whose time seems to be divided between feeding and sleeping, occasionally disports itself in fun and frolic, like its more elegant but smaller congeners. It will then throw itself clean out of the water, “lobtail,” “breach,” and so on.