Whale

(hwal.) [From A. S. hwal.] (Zool.) A name common to some Cetaceans, comprising the families Balænid a and Physeter ide. The former comprises Whales which have no real teeth, but the two sides of their upper jaw, which is keel-shaped, are furnished with rows of vertical horny plates, called whalebone, formed of a sort of fibrous horn, and which are fringed on their inner edges. The gen. Balana, distinguished by the absence of a dorsal fin and by the smoothne of the belly, includes the Green land or Right Whale, B. mysticetus, so much sought after for the oil extracted from its blubber and for its whalebone. This whale attains the length of 70 feet, and is sometimes furnished with a blubber 2 or 3 feet in thickne . The gen. Balenoptera comprises whales with a dorsal fin and short baleen, and known under the names ofF in-backs, Razor-backs, and Rorquals. They equal and in many cases much exceed the B. mysticetus in length,-some have been seen 100 feet long, but yield far le oil. They are exceedingly powerful and rapid in their movements, and are captured with the greatest difficulty and danger. Animals of such enormous strength and magnitude, we might imagine, would spread terror and devastation all around them, and make an indiscriminate slaughter of the inferior tribes. No creature, however, is le voracious than the common whale; little animal substance is ever found in its stomach; it feeds, as some allege, upon different insects that float on the surface; according to others, upon the medusa or sea-blubber. Some a ert, however, that its food consists chiefly of herring, the immense shoals of which it follows to the Arctic Ocean. Its food, we are certain, must be minute, for the capacity of its throat does not exceed four inches! a size beyond all proportion smaller than that of other large aquatic animals. To a slender appetite the whale adds peaceable and harmle manners; it pursues no other inhabitant of the waters, but leads an easy and quiet life on the bosom of the waves, and is inoffensive in proportion to its ability to do mischief. The Sperm-Whale belongs to the family PHYSETER IDE, q. v. The Right Whale is confined to the frigid regions, and is common to the N. Atlantic and N. Pacific; but it is specially hunted by American and English whalers abt. Baffin's Bay, where the ve els arrive about the end of April. The produce of the Right Whale and of the Sperm-Whale, before chemistry had supplied us with substitutes for train oil and spermaceti, was of far greater economical importance than it is now. The whale fishery has therefore greatly fallen off within the last years. [s. 957]