The whale is the largest of all known animals. There are three kinds of
whale; the Greenland, called by the sailors the right whale, as being
most highly prized by them; the great northern rorqual, called by
fishers the razor-back or finner, and the cachalot or spermaciti whale.
The common whale measures from sixty to seventy feet in length: the
mouth, when open, is large enough to admit a ship's jolly boat, with all
her men in it. It contains no teeth; and enormous as the creature is,
the opening to the throat is very narrow, not more than an inch and a
half across in the largest whale.

[Illustration: WHALE FISHING]

Instead of teeth the mouth of the whale is furnished with a curious
framework of a substance called _baleen_; you will know it by the name
of whalebone; it is arranged in rows, and projects beyond the lips in a
hanging fringe; the food of the whale consists of shrimps, small fishes,
sea-snails, and innumerable minute creatures, called medusae, which are
found in those seas where the whales feed in such vast quantities that
they make the water of a deep green or olive color.

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.