The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-05-18

necessary to take in an enormous quanti-
" of the little animals is provided, and TO
lnclose the prey within il the curious for
nation. which is commonly known as
whalebone, is brought into play The
whalebOne issues from the upper Jaw in
a series of long, horny plates, called
blades or fakes bywhalers. These fakes
are short at the angle of the Jaw and at
the end of 1t and long in the middle. /
have seen these central flakes twelve feet
long ana whales have been taken with
fakes sixteen feet long, more than a foot
wide and two inches thick on the back.
These flakes are shaped like the blade of
knife, growing thinner as they recede
from the jaw, the edge OF the blades being
turned inward. only their backs being Wis
ible on the outside. This whalebone is not
bone at all, but, like the horn of the rhi-
noceros, Is simply an aggregation of hair,
and II II be boiled for some time and then
pounded with mallet it will become a
regular tuft of bristlcs. In its natural
state the thin edge of each flake, as well
as the Zip, is naturally broken up into its
component hairs, so that il forms q brisk
fringe Ground the edges of the mouth.
There are $50 of these blades ON each side
of the upper jaw, and they are set so
closely side by side that "a visiting card
could with difficulty be inserted between
them Thus the enormous cavity of the
mouth is inClOSed within vast triangular
case of baleen, the loose fibers Of the in
terror forming perfect hair sieve This
living sieve is of such gigantic dimensions
that whale boat fully manned might be
rowed into it without touching the sides
of the mouth.
People generally know baloen only in
its commercial state, and have no idea
what it is like i'm its live or natural state.
II is then soft, flexible and elastic, and
entirely unlike the brittle article seen in
the stores A piece of dried whalebone
if bent viii break at the point Of tension,
and there is no elasticity to it. But dur
ing the life of the whale baleen is abso-
lutely unbreal5abc 10 is veritable living
india rubber When the mouth of the
whale is closed the baleen blades bend
backward into deep grooves, but as soon
as the great sea mammoth opens its mouth
they spring forward by their own wonder
full elasticity so that they entirely close
the space between the upper and lower
jaws, and the bushels of little mollusks
that the whale gathers in as he skins
them from the surface into his enormous
mouth, are held imprisoned within the
great hinged inclosure, only the water
escaping through the hairy soive
The Greenland whale is constantly on
the move, and rapid move it is, too A
speed of twenty knots an hour through
the water scooping up his dainty sub
sistence, is nothing for one of these greedy
leviathans Of the deep. The most curious
part of this constant rapid journeying of
the Greenland whale is chat it never slows
up any to feed its young, which live by
sucking the mother until the bacen be-
gins to appear in their upper jaws. TAX
ing its food and at the same time travel
ing at railroad speed would be an impossi-
hility with the cub whale if il
d,peldCd on loisurely style of sucking
suchasyoung pigs and other animals do
But nature has built the Greenland
whale on a different plan. The whale
mother is constructed so that she can give
her cub its meal instantly, although it ro-
quires not less than q gallon OF milk to
satisfy a whale cubs appetite. The teat
of the female whale is n regular force
pump, and when the young whale, speed
ing along at its mothers side through the
waters, gives notice that it is hungry, and
seizes the tactical fount, the mother sets
the force pump in motion, and the whole
supply of milk needed by the cub is in.
ected instantaneously into its stomach,
the throat and stomach of the cub being
especially constructed to receive this sup
ply as suddenly as it is pumped into it."