whalebone; _t_, tongue in dotted line; _n_, nerve
aperture in lower jaw; _bo_, bone sawed through.]

Formerly all whaling vessels were sailers, but now powerful
steamships are used, and the harpoon often gives way to the harpoon
gun. A whale, when struck, will sometimes run out a mile of line
before it comes up again, which is generally in about half an hour.
The whalers judge as best they can, from the position of the line,
in which direction he will rise, and get as near as possible so as
to use the lance or drive in another harpoon. When killed, the animal
is towed to the vessel and fastened on the port side, belly uppermost,
and head towards the stern; it is then stripped of its blubber, the
body being canted by tackles till all parts are cleared. The baleen
is then cut out, and the carcase abandoned to the sharks, killer
whales, and sea birds.

The baleen whales are not found in the intertropical seas. Of the
known species there are the Greenland whale (_B. mysticetus_), the
Biscay whale (_B. Biscayensis_), the Japan whale (_B. Japonica_),
the Cape whale (_B. australis_), and the South Pacific whale (_B.
antipodarum_).

_GENUS BALAENOPTERA--FINBACK WHALES OR RORQUALS_.

Are distinguished by their longer and narrower bodies, smaller heads,
being one-fourth instead of one-third the length of the body, smaller
mouths, shorter baleen, plaited throats, and smaller flippers; they
have a dorsal fin behind the middle of the back, and the root of the
tail is compressed laterally. They also present certain osteological
differences from the right whales; the latter have the whole of the
seven cervical vertebrae anchylosed, that is to say generally, for
sometimes the seventh is free. In the finbacks the cervical vertebrae
are, as a rule, all distinct and free, although occasionally
anchylosis may take place between two or more of them. The sternum
of the _Balaena_ consists of a broad, flattened, heart-shaped or oval
presternum. "In the fin whales (_Balaenoptera_) it is transversely
oval or trilobate, with a projecting backward xiphoid process"
(_Professor Flower_). The ulna and radius in the rorquals are also
comparatively longer than in the baleen whales. In the skull, the
supraorbital processes of the frontals are broader in the rorquals
than in others, and the olfactory fossa is less elongated.

They are more muscular and active animals than the right whales, and
have a less amount of blubber and much shorter whaleb