Baleen whale

“ Robert Goodsir of a large female whale killed in Ponds bay:—
Female whales are larger and fatter than the males, so that a female will have an average of about ten more tons of blubber than an ordinary male. As will be seen from the above measurements, the head equals about a third of the length of the body, and the upper jaw, which carries the baleen or whalebone, is only a few feet shorter. The baleen is in the form of thin slabs or ‘splits’ set close together in the gum at right-angles to the length of the jaw-bone. ”

“ This Whale varies much in colour from black to mottled grey and black, and reaches a length of about 40 feet.
Fam. 2. Balaenidae.—The Right Whales of the genus Balaena are to be distinguished from Neobalaena and from the Rorquals by the following characters:—
The size is large, 50 to 60 feet. There is no dorsal fin. The head is more than or nearly one-fourth of the entire length of the animal. The baleen is very long. The throat is not grooved. The orbital process of the frontal is not wider than the downward process of the maxilla. The cervical vertebrae are all fused. ”

“ In the Greenland Whale this whalebone hanging from the center of the jaw is sometimes twelve feet in length, and as there are from two hundred and fifty to four hundred in number, the great value of the baleen is readily seen. When the great animal opens its mouth, a row boat with its oarsmen could easily be taken in, yet the animal eats only small crustaceans, mollusks, worms and minute forms of life. ”

“ The great majority of people believe that all large whales eat fish whereas none, except the sperm whale, does so when other food is to be obtained. All the baleen whales eat small crustaceans and especially the little red shrimp (Euphausia inermis) , which is about three-quarters of an inch long. These minute animals float in great masses, sometimes near the surface but often several fathoms below it, and the movements 68of the whales are very largely determined by their position and abundance. ”

“ In certain species of whales there is a tendency to the formation of irregular little points of horn on the palate; and it seems to be quite within the scope of natural selection to preserve all favourable variations, until the points were converted, first into lamellated knobs or teeth, like those on the beak of a goose,— then into short lamellæ, like those of the domestic ducks,— and then into lamellæ, as perfect as those of the shoveller-duck,— and finally into the gigantic plates of baleen, as in the mouth of the Greenland whale. ”

“ An ordinary-sized Whale, between forty and fifty feet, will yield, according to Scammon, from sixty to eighty barrels of oil, and 1,000 lbs. of baleen. The usual manner is for the Whale to be brought along the port side of the vessel, its tail forwards, belly up, and head aft. Tackled at each extremity, the men with spiked boots commence to strip the blubber, which is hoisted on deck. When the belly and right side with flipper are disposed of, the carcass is canted and the other side is similarly treated. ”

“ A stage beyond, and we reach the shoveler's condition, "in which the lamellæ would be two thirds of the length of the plates of baleen," in a species of whalebone whale (Balænoptera) possessing a slight development of these organs. And from this point, the further gradations leading onward to the enormous developments seen in the Greenland whale itself, are easily enough traced. Hypothetically, therefore, the path of development is clear enough. ”

“ When feeding, this lip is let down, so that it projects nearly at right-angles, forming a sort of trough and conducting the water, as the whale moves through it, to the tangle of hairs of the exposed bone. When sufficient food has been collected the lip is closed and the food removed from the baleen by the broad tongue. A whale when feeding travels at, or near the surface, at a rate varying from two to four miles an hour. The speed at which a free whale travels through the water appears to have been greatly exaggerated. ”

“ Baleen consists of a series of flattened, horny plates, several hundred in number, on each side of the palate, separated by a bare interval along the middle line. They are placed transversely to the long axis of the palate, with very short spaces between them. Each plate or blade is somewhat triangular in form, with the base attached to the palate, and the apex hanging downward. The outer edge of the blade is hard and smooth, but the inner edge and apex fray out into long, bristly fibers, so that the roof of the whale's mouth looks as if covered with hair, as described by Aristotle. ”

“ When feeding the whale swims with open mouth under the water, and all the objects which lie in the way of that great moving cavern are caught by the baleen, and never seen again. Along with their food they swallow a vast quantity of water, which passes back again through the nostrils, and is collected into a bag placed at the external orifice of the cavity of the nose, whence it is expelled by the pressure of powerful muscles through a very narrow opening pierced in the top of the head. ”

“ This [41] network acts as a sort of sieve. When the whale feeds it takes into its mouth a great gulp of water, which it drives out again through the intervals of the horny plates of baleen, the fluid thus traversing the sieve of horny fibres, which retains the minute creatures on which these marine monsters subsist. Now it is obvious, that if this baleen had once attained such a size and development as to be at all useful, then its preservation and augmentation within serviceable limits, would be promoted by "Natural Selection" alone. But how to obtain the beginning of such useful development? ”

“ The inner edges and apices of these are frayed out into long fibres which act as strainers. In Balaena mysticetus, the Greenland whale, there are nearly four hundred of these plates, the longest of which often exceed 10 ft. In its development baleen resembles rhinoceros horn in that it consists of a number of epidermal hair-like fibres cemented together and growing from dermal papillae, though not from true hair follicles. ”

“ They feed on the surface—their food being small crustacea or “brit,” which they scoop up with open mouth and strain through the rows of baleen which hang from the upper jaw.
3—BOWHEAD WHALE. The Arctic or Greenland whale. Living in the cold waters of the high latitudes the blubber of this species is much thicker than that of Sperm or Right, one Bowhead rendering as much as three hundred barrels.
The quality of its oil, however, is much inferior to sperm oil, and for years it was hunted for its whalebone alone. ”

“ The great soft tongue, filling 69the space between the rows of baleen, expels the water in streams, leaving only the little shrimp which have been strained out by the bristles on the inner side of the whalebone plates.
The fins and one lobe of the flukes are thrust into the air as the mouth is closed, and sometimes the animal rolls from side to side. At this time the whales are careless of danger and pay not the slightest attention to a ship. The quantity of shrimp eaten by a single whale is enormous. ”

“ Occasionally individuals are nearly black, but the more common and characteristic colour is a mottled-grey or speckled patches of white on all the upper parts, underneath being darkest in body-tint. The flippers are fully six feet long, broad in the middle, but taper to a point. The head arches downwards from the blowhole forwards, and the baleen is remarkably short, brownish-white, and coarse in texture. From November till May this Whale frequents the Californian coast, and then the females enter the shallow bays and lagoons, and give birth to their young, while the males keep seawards. ”

“ In the maritime world and in the realm of geographic exploration, whales have played a major role. This is the animal that first dragged the Basques in its wake, then Asturian Spaniards, Englishmen, and Dutchmen, emboldening them against the ocean’s perils, and leading them to the ends of the earth. Baleen whales like to frequent the southernmost and northernmost seas. ”

“ May I here offer a few notes picked up on the subject of whales, etc. The sperm or cachalot whale is a dangerous and bold fighter and is perhaps the most interesting of all cetaceans. His skin, like that of the porpoise, is as thin as gold-beaters' leaf. Underneath it is a coating of fine hair or fur, not attached to the skin, and then the blubber. He has enormous teeth or tushes in the lower jaw, but has no baleen. He devours very large fish, even sharks, but his principal food seems to be cuttle-fish and squids, some of them of as great bulk as himself. ”

“ Meanwhile Captain Nemo studied the herd of cetaceans, then addressed me:
“I was right to claim that baleen whales have enough natural enemies without counting man. These specimens will soon have to deal with mighty opponents. Eight miles to leeward, Professor Aronnax, can you see those blackish specks moving about?” ”

“ The bones serve as timber for [Pg 103] roofing their houses, and other domestic purposes; and fishing-rods of the best quality are made from the whalebone. [29]
The common whale, notwithstanding its magnitude, swims with surprising agility, and generally against the wind. The flat position of its tail enables it to ascend suddenly to the surface of the water to breathe, which it is frequently obliged to do. Whales are very harmless and timid; but, when attacked, frequently strike the boats a dangerous blow with their tails, in which their greatest strength lies. ”

“ The whale feeds on them. When he desires a meal he opens his great mouth and rushes into the midst of a shoal of medusae; the little things get entangled in thousands among the hairy ends of the whalebone, and when the monster has got a large enough mouthful, he shuts his lower jaw and swallows what his net has caught. ”

“ Whales seldom stay more than an hour under water, and when they come up to breathe, they discharge the last breath they took through their nostrils or blow-holes, mixed with large quantities of water which they have taken in while feeding. But the most remarkable point of difference between the whale and fishes of all kinds is, that it suckles its young. ”

“ Certainly, when once a boat is smashed, it is rare for a whale to deliberately try to destroy the men in the water. The sperm whale tries to bite; the right whale—it is from him your whalebone comes—strikes with his vast flukes. He will lie quietly in the water and brush his flukes back and forth across the surface, feeling for his enemy. If his flukes touch a floating tub, an oar, a man, they coil up like an enormous spring, and slap down with a blow that crushes utterly whatever they may strike. The whalemen have a proverb: "'Ware the sperm whale's jaw, and the right whale's flukes." ”

“ It is upon these creatures that the whale feeds. Opening its mouth wide, it rushes through the sea, and takes in a crowd of these soft-bodied animals, along with the water in which they are swimming. Closing its mouth, it drives out the water through its plates of whalebone, and the little creatures are caught in the bristles as in a net. Its great tongue is lifted up, and crushes them all into soft pulp, which is easily swallowed, even down the whale's small throat. ”

“ Our dead out of sight, work claimed all our attention and energy, wiping with its benificent influence all gloomy musings over the inevitable, and replacing them with the pressing needs of life. The whale was not a large one, but peculiar to look at. Like the specimen that fought so fiercely with us in the Indian Ocean, its jaw was twisted round in a sort of hook, the part that curved being so thickly covered with long barnacles as to give the monster a most eerie look. ”

“ At that moment the cry came from forward, "There she blows!" the usual signal at sea for a whale in sight, and all eyes were turned to watch the gambols of a large whale and her calf, half a mile to windward. It will be remembered that these were once famous whaling latitudes, but this adventurous industry has now become almost a thing of the past in these regions. In the mean time the Leviathan and its giant baby were lashing the sea and sending up small mountains of spray, the calf occasionally leaping quite out of the water in its redundant sportiveness. ”

“ Whalemen always watch these birds while they are wheeling around high in the air in graceful and rapid circles, for they know that as soon as they sight a whale blowing they start for him, and from their elevated position they can, of course, discern one at a much greater distance than the men in the boat I doubt if it be altogether the marine animals brought to the surface by the whale that they are after, for if the whale remains above the surface any length of time they always settle on his back and hunt parasites. ”

“ As soon as the carcass of a whale is sent adrift after the blubber is taken off, it is covered over with these voracious birds, who then make a loud worrying noise. When a fish is alongside the ship, they surround it in vast numbers, and are so eager of their prey, that they suffer themselves to be caught with the hand, and may be knocked down easily by those on the whale, or in the boats. ”

“ This is itself a kind of small whale, but it is wonderfully strong, swift, and bold. When one of the killers gets into the middle of a school of whales, the frightened creatures are seen flying in all directions. His mode of attack is to seize his big enemy by the jaw, and hold on until he is exhausted and dies. ”