size-has been compared from this and its softness to a feather-bed; it is composed almost entirely of fat, and adheres to the lower jaw by its under surface.

The eyes are not larger than those of an ox, but the sense of seeing is acute. The whale has no external ear, nor can any orifice for the admission of sound be discovered until the skin is removed. On the upper part of the head there is a double opening, called the "spout holes," or "blow holes;" through these the animal breathes, and they also serve to carry off the water while the animal is feeding, as they take with their prey large quantities of water into their mouths. This they drive out by the compression of powerful muscles, producing spouts of water forty or fifty feet in height. In place of teeth, the mouth contains two rows of whalebone, of a curved form, and from ten to fourteen feet in length. The breadth of the largest at the thick ends, where it is attached to the jaw, is about a foot. A large whale yields a ton and half of whalebone. The tail is flat and horizontal, only four or five feet

long, but more than twenty broad, indented in the middle, and the two lobes pointed and turned outwards. In it lies the whole strength of the animal, and it is a most formidable instrument of motion and defence. A single stroke will throw a large boat with all its crew into the air.

Sometimes the whale places himself in a perpendicular position, with the head downwards, and lashes the water with an awful violence, that is heard for miles off, like the roar of a distant tempest. Sometimes he makes an immense spring, and rears his whole body above the waves, to the terror of those who, for the first time, witness so astonishing a spectacle. This animal employs the tail principally to advance himself in the water, as a boat is skulled along by a single oar; his fins merely direct and steady the movement, and thus serve rather as a helm than as oars. The force with which this immense creature cuts its way through the water is so great, as to occasion a track like that which a ship leaves. This is called his wake, and by it the animal is often traced.

The colour of the Greenland whale is velvet

The

black, grey and white (composed of dots of blackish. brown on a white ground), with a tinge of yellow. The back, with the fins and tail, are black. skin of the body is slightly furrowed, like the water lines in coarsely laid paper. On the tail and fins it is smooth. The skin is about an inch thick; the outer part of this can be pulled off in sheets after it has been dried in the air, and is not thicker than parchment. Under the skin lies the blubber, or fat. This and the whalebone are the parts to which the attention of the fisher is attracted. Its colour is yellowish white, yellow or salmon colour. It is by this covering that Providence enables the whale to defy the most dreadful extremities of cold, and to preserve a strong animal heat even under the eternal ice of the Pole. The blubber in its fresh state is without any unpleasant smell. The flesh of the young whale is of a red colour, and when cleared of the fat, broiled and seasoned with pepper and salt, does not eat unlike coarse beef; that of the old whale is nearly black, and is exceedingly coarse.

The Esquimaux eat the flesh and fat of the

whale, and drink the oil with greediness. Indeed some tribes, who are not familiarized with spirituous liquors, carry along with them in their canoes, in their fishing excursions, bladders filled with oil, which they use in the same way, and with a similar relish that a British sailor enjoys a dram. Both adults and children eat the skin of the whale raw; and it is not uncommon, when the females visit the whale ships, for them to help themselves to pieces of skin, preferring those which have a little blubber adhering, and to give it as food to the infants suspended on their backs, who suck it with apparent delight. Blubber, when pickled and boiled, is said to be very palatable. At a whale feast, Captain Lyon states he has seen the Esquimaux lying on the ground, and their wives feeding them with blubber, filling the mouth, and then cutting the dainty off at the lips, repeating the operation until an enormous quantity was thus consumed. Mr. J. B. Noel, in a tract on the whale-fishery, informs us, " that about the thirteenth century, the flesh, particularly the tongue, of the whale was sold in the markets of Bayonne,

Cibourre, and Béariz, where it was esteemed as a great delicacy, being used at the best tables ;" and even so late as the fifteenth century he conceives, from the authority of Charles Etienne, that the principal nourishment of the poor in Lent, in some districts of France, consisted of the flesh and fat of the whale. Besides forming a choice eatable, the inferior products of the whale are applied to other purposes by the Indians and Esqui

maux.

Some membranes of the inside are used for an upper article of clothing; and one part in particular, being thin and transparent, is used instead of glass in the windows of their huts: the bones are converted into harpoons and spears for striking the seal, or darting at the sea-birds, and are also employed in the erection of their tents, and, with some tribes, in the formation of boats; the sinews are divided into filaments, and used as thread, with which they join the seams of their boats and tentcloths, and sew with great taste and nicety the different articles of dress they manufacture; and the whalebone, and other superior products, so