Fig. 4. The Sulphur Bottom (Sibbaldius sulfurens).
Fig. 5. The Bowhead (Balaena mysticetus).
Fig. 6. The Finback or Oregon Finner (Balaenoptera velifera).
Fig. 7. The Pacific Right Whale (Balaena japonica).
DIFFERENT SPECIES OF WHALES AND THEIR PRODUCTS
There are many different kinds of whales; namely, sperm whale, right whale, finback, humpback, razor-back, sulphur bottom whale, and the narwhal. The two former species are the more often sought after. The sperm whale was so called because it was the only kind that furnished sperm oil, which is a richer and more valuable fluid than the ordinary whale oil. This species was also called “cachalot.” It has one spout hole through which it blows vapor (not water as is generally supposed), which resembles one’s breath on a frosty morning; it has also about fifty teeth on the lower jaw which fit into sockets in the upper jaw, and very small eyes and ears. This kind of whale usually employed its mouth as a means of defence, whereas the right whale used its immense tail. A large-sized whale will yield about eighty barrels of oil, but they have been known to boil even larger amounts. Captain John Howland of New Bedford captured two whales which produced over four hundred barrels together. The tongue alone often produced twenty-five barrels. In order to attract the squid, or cuttle-fish, which is often lured by a shiny object from the dark recesses in the great depths of the ocean, the jaw and inner side of the Brobdingnagian mouth are lined with a silvery membrane of phosphorescent whiteness, which is probably the only thing the squid sees when the dark body of the whale is at the great depths to which it sometimes descends for food. Huge pieces of shark and hundreds of mackerel have been found in the stomach of a sperm whale, showing what a carnivorous animal the sperm whale is.
A ship on the northwest coast “cutting in” her last right whale, showing the jaw with the whalebone being hauled on board.
The right whale was so called because it was supposed to be the “right” whale to capture. It differs from the sperm whale chiefly from the fact that it has long strips of whalebone in its mouth which catch the small fish for food, the whalebone serving in place of the teeth of the other species. A right whale usually has about five or six hundred of these parallel strips, which weigh in all about one ton; they are over ten feet long, are fixed to its upper jaw, and hang down on each side of the tongue. These strips are fringed with hair, which hangs from the sides of the mouth and through which the whale strains the “brit,” on which a right whale feeds. The “brit” is a little reddish shrimp-shaped jellyfish which occurs in such quantities in various parts of the ocean that often the sea is red with them. With its mouth stretched open, resembling more than anything else a Venetian blind, a sulphur bottom or right whale scoops, at a speed of from four to six miles an hour, through the “brit” just under the surface and thus sifts in its search for food a tract fifteen feet wide and often over a quarter of a mile long. As the whale drives through the water much like a huge black scow, the sea foams through the slatted bone, packing the jellyfish upon the hair sieve. When it thinks it has a mouthful it raises the lower jaw and, keeping the lips apart, forces the great spongy tongue into the whalebone sieve. It then closes its lips, swallows the catch and repeats until satiated. Another difference between the sperm and the right whale is that the latter has two spout holes instead of one.