“ It cannot now remain long below the surface, and when it conies up it often spouts blood through the blow-holes if the lungs have been injured. When it is lanced, it sometimes dies almost at once, but occasionally there is a terrific struggle—the water is lashed into foam and dyed with blood. It not infrequently happens that, instead of dying at the surface of the water, the whale descends, and does not rise again, so that it is lost to the whaler. The carcass of the whale is towed by the boats to the ship, and made fast to the ship's chains. ”

“ The skin of a whale is, however, smooth and without scales, although there are frequently barnacles and parasitic crustaceans attached to it in considerable numbers. The only outgrowths of the skin are hair-like bristles near the mouth, and these are not always present, being rather a characteristic of the young. The fore limbs of whales are supported by the same bones as in other mammals, but are very much flattened, and the digits, which have an unusual number of phalanges, are all united in a common skin. ”

“ The period of gestation is uncertain; one young is produced at a birth, and is from ten to fourteen feet in length when born. The mother displays great affection for her offspring, of which whale-fishers sometimes take advantage, harpooning the young one—itself of little value—in order to secure the mother. ”

“ Most whales have more or less of a dorsal fin on the median line of the back, but it is simply an outgrowth of the integument, and even in those forms where it is most highly developed it has no bony supports. The head of a whale is very large proportionately, in some species as much as one-third of the total length. The eyes are small, as is the ear-opening; there are no external ears. ”

“ During the nineteenth century the United States became the great centre of the whale fishery, and it is to-day the principal producer of whale products. Nantucket was the original centre of the American whaling industry, and sent her boats to Newfoundland, the Gulf Stream, West Indies, and even as far as the Cape Verde Islands and Brazil. The Revolutionary War paralyzed the industry and many of the interests were transferred to England and France. ”

“ The eyes, which are situated on the sides of the head, about a foot above and rather behind the angles of the mouth, are not larger than those of an ox; but the sense of sight seems to be acute, at least in the water. ”

“ The salivary glands of a whale are rudimentary or wanting, the stomach is many-chambered and quite peculiar, the intestinal caecum is wanting or very small, the gall-bladder is wanting, the larynx has a peculiar shape, the blood system is remarkable for its plexuses, both arterial and venous, the brain is large and round, with numerous and complex cerebral surface convolutions, and the mammary glands are situated far back, one on each side of the female reproductive opening. ”

“ The blubber of the sperm whale is only about a foot thick and is not notably rich in oil, a large whale yielding about 100 barrels. When aroused these whales are dangerous adversaries, and either by biting or striking with the tail they can completely destroy whale boats, while by using the head as a ram they can sink small vessels. ”

“ Whales usually come to the surface to breathe at intervals of eight or ten minutes, but they are capable of remaining under water for half an hour or more. When they come up to breathe, they generally remain on the surface about two minutes, during which they blow eight or nine times, and then descend. The noise which they make in blowing is very loud, and the spout of spray ejected ascends several yards into the air, appearing at a distance like a puff of smoke. ”

“ Teeth are wanting in the true whales, but in all other cetaceans they are present, at least in the lower jaw, and in the embryos of true whales they are found well formed about the middle of fœtal life, but they are gradually absorbed and no trace of them exists at birth. The teeth are always simple, with conical or compressed crowns and single roots, and there is only one set, milk teeth not being developed. ”

“ The nostrils or nostril (there is often only one) are situated far back from the nose, on the vertex of the head, and are closed by a plug-like valve, which can only be opened by pressure from the inside. ”

“ The sperm whale reaches a length of sixty feet or possibly more, but the female is much smaller than the male. The head is enormously large, forming about one-half of the entire bulk of the animal and occupying more than one-third of the entire length. From the head, the body tapers to the tail, and at last rather rapidly. ”

“ The mouth is very large and wide; and the throat, unlike that of the Greenland whale, is very wide, sufficiently so to admit the body of a man. The upper jaw projects some feet beyond the lower, and is destitute of teeth ”

“ There is a special arrangement of dilated ducts and compressor muscles, so that the milk can be forced into the mouth of the young one in considerable quantities at a time, by the action of the mother, so that ‘sucking’ under water is made feasible. ”

“ In 1680 they had 260 ships and about 14,000 men employed in the whale fishery, but after that their fishery began to decline. In the eighteenth century Great Britain took the lead, encouraging the sending out of sailing vessels to engage in whale-hunting by a generous bounty, the object being quite as much the training of seamen as the development of the whale fishery. ”

“ The hind limbs are entirely wanting, the only evidence of their ancestral occurrence being a pair of small, slender bones, completely imbedded in the body wall and not connected with the backbone, supposed to represent vestigial ischia. ”

“ Whales are very widely distributed in all parts of the ocean and are frequently gregarious, sometimes occurring in thousands. Some species, however, are generally seen singly or in pairs. A few species appear to be regularly migratory, while others wander almost at will, restricted by no natural barriers. ”

“ Owing to the large size of the mouth, the maxillary and mandibular bones of the skull are greatly elongated, giving the cranium proper a disproportionately small appearance, although it is in reality of relatively good size. There are always seven vertebræ in the neck, but they are crowded close together, are practically immobile, and are more or less fused together into a single piece. ”

“ All whales are carnivorous, but only the killers (q.v.) eat other warm-blooded vertebrates. Fishes and squids are the chief articles of diet of the toothed whales, while small mollusks and other invertebrates maintain the whalebone whales. ”

“ All of the right whales have been, and are still to a certain extent, pursued by whalers, and their numbers accordingly have become greatly reduced during the past century, and the North Atlantic form is now very rare. ”