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low on each side of the neck, and at the base of the yellow spot is a triangular black one. Although it bears a strong resemblance to the viper, and like it feeds on mice, in sects, and frogs, yet their habits are in many important respects different. The viper delights in dry, stony, or chalky soil; the snake in moist situations. The viper brings forth her young alive; the snake deposits her eggs in dunghills, the heat of which promotes the exclusion of her progeny. The snake, like the rest of the genus, be comes torpid during the winter-taking up its abode among the roots of a hedge, or under an old tree.

The Painted Snake, a native of South America, is perfectly innocent, and is the most beautiful of its genus. It varies, however, very much in its colours; but is gener ally of an orange ground, with black blotches. Sometimes it is black and white, and sometimes pale rose and black, paler on the belly, and beautifully fasciated with bars of deep black.

The Slow Worm, or Blind Worm, as it is more generally called, is found in Britain and various other countries of Europe. None of the genus possess the fangs necessary to inject poison, but some of the species are furnished with the bags in which it is secreted. It is so very fragile that if thrown down it breaks into pieces, but it is so tenacious of life, that the fragments live and move for a long while. The kind common to this country is perfectly harmless.

The Amphisbona contains only five species; and the animals of this genus are chiefly remarkable for the difficulty there is in distinguishing their head from their tail, and the singular faculty of moving either backwards or forwards with equal ease. They have no scales, but a smooth, equal, cylindrical body.

The genus Caecilia contains only two species, which have their bodies covered with wrinkles instead of scales, and two tentacula, or feelers, on the upper lip.

The genus Acrochordus contains only one species, namely, the Warted Snake. It is a native of Java, residing chiefly among the pepper plantations, and growing sometimes to seven feet long. The body gradually thickens towards the middle, and suddenly contracts towards the

The colour

tail, which is short, and slightly acuminated. is brown, paler beneath, and the sides variegated with a dirty white. The body is completely covered with tubercles or warts, whence the creature takes its name.

XV. The Whale.

THE Whale Tribe, Cetacea, comprehends the largest of existing animals. Although inhabitants of the ocean, they have several features in common with the larger quadrupeds, and have therefore been placed by naturalists in the class of mammalia, or suck-giving animals. Thus, they are viviparous, or produce living offspring; their skin is smooth, and without scales; their blood is warm; they have a heart, and lungs by which they breathe; and they resemble mammalia in some other particulars. However, as they have not been noticed in any of the former volumes of this series, we here give them a place according to their popular, and apparently more natural classification.

The Whale is the largest animal of which we have any certain information, the Great Greenland, or Common Whalebone Whale, being usually about sixty feet long. Formerly this animal was represented to be of much greater size, but Mr Scoresby, an eminent Arctic voyager, has proved that this rests upon no good authority. A whale about sixty feet long, and forty feet in circumference, will weigh seventy tons, and yield about thirty tons of oil, which some years ago would bring between L.1600 and L.1800. The blubber or fat, from which the oil is extracted, is from eight to twenty inches in thickness, and forms, beneath the skin, a complete covering, by which the animal heat is retained, even in the extreme cold of the Polar Seas. The head alone constitutes a third of its whole bulk. The lips, about twenty feet long on each side, when open, exhibit, as it were, the entrance of a huge cavern, capable of admitting a ship's jolly boat, while, in contrast, the throat it said to be so contracted as scarcely to admit of a small herring. In place of teeth, the upper jaw of these creatures is thickly set with that well-known substance called whalebone; as they feed on the smaller

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kind of marine animals, which are necessarily received into the mouth along with a large quantity of sea water, they are, by means of these laminæ or leaves of whalebone, which act like a filter, able to retain their food and get rid of the liquid. The jaw bones, extending along on each side of the mouth, are from fifteen to twenty feet long. These may sometimes be seen in the neighbourhood of our fishing towns, placed upright instead of gateposts, one on each side of the gateway, in the form of a Gothic arch. The fins or flappers, placed immediately behind the eyes, are nine feet long, and serve merely to balance and direct the motions of the animal. The tail is about twenty feet broad, lying flat and horizontal in the water, and is of such tremendous power that a single blow has been known to throw a large boat, with all its crew, into the air to the height of fifteen or twenty feet. Sometimes the whale plunges his head downwards, with his tail erected above the surface; and in this perpendicular position he beats the water with amazing fury. On these occasions the sea foams, and vapours darken the air; the lashing is heard several miles off, like the roar of a distant tempest. Sometimes he heaves his huge body entirely above the waves with a gambol that strikes dismay into those who, for the first time, witness these pastimes of the monsters of the deep. The most extraordinary circumstance in the conformation of the whale is the nostrils or blow-holes, situated nearly on the top of the head. With these, when blowing beneath the surface, he will throw the water to the height of fifty feet, with a noise which, by some, has been compared to the discharge of a cannon.

The ships engaged in the whale fishing are constructed of great strength, each carrying six or seven boats, and from forty to fifty men. The boats are suspended round the ship, ready to be launched in a few minutes, while one is kept manned and afloat. The captain, or some inferior officer, seated aloft in a kind of light sentry-box called the crow's nest, and provided with a telescope and a speaking trumpet, surveys the surrounding ocean to a great distance. The instant he spies a whale he gives notice to those on deck, who immediately launch some of the boats and set out in pursuit. Each boat has a harpooner, who stands at the prow of the boat ready to dart the harpoon into the

animal. To this instrument is attached a rope exceeding four thousand feet in length, coiled up in different parts of the boat. One of the boats, in the deepest silence, approaches him from behind, when the harpooner darts his instrument into the back of the whale, which, on receiving the wound, usually plunges to a great depth, swimming at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour. The greatest care and attention are then necessary that the line run off smoothly and readily, as should it become entangled for a moment, the boat and crew may be drawn after him under the waves. When the line belonging to the first boat is nearly exhausted, the crew make a signal to the others for a supply. Should this not be at hand, the rope is turned once or twice round a kind of post called the bollard or billet-head, in order that the speed of the whale may be somewhat retarded; while the friction from the ropewhirling round the bollard is so great that the harpooner is enveloped in smoke, and water must be poured on the bollard to prevent it from catching fire. Instances are related of the whale running out several miles of rope, and of one being at last caught after exhausting about six miles of cord, though not all in one continued line, but run out by harpoons darted from several boats.

When the whale is first struck, the boat's crew hoist a flag as a signal to the watch on board the ship, who rouse those sleeping below by stamping on the deck and crying aloud, "A fall! A fall!" These immediately rush out in their sleeping shirts or drawers into an atmosphere the temperature of which is often some degrees below zero, carrying with them their clothes, and dressing while others are launching and pushing off the boats. The tumult is so great at this moment, as sometimes to strike the unexperienced with the greatest alarm, from their fears of the ship being about to sink; and an instance lately occurred of a person dying from the effects of terror. The whale continues for some time under the water, on an average about half an hour, but is obliged to re-ascend for the sake of breathing. In the meantime, the boats, spread in various directions, are waiting his re-appearance, when he is pierced with one or more harpoons before he again descends, and ultimately with lances, till blood, issuing from the wounds, tinges the sea to a great distance. At length,

quite exhausted, he lays himself on his side or back, and expires.

There are several species of whales. That called by the sailors Razorback, though smaller than the last, is a still longer and more powerful animal. He has been found upwards of 100 feet in length, and is of such amazing speed, that Mr Scoresby states he has seen him run off 960 yards of line in a minute, though he usually swims at the rate of about twelve miles an hour. He affords, however, a very small proportion of oil, and is therefore seldom sought after or destroyed.

The Broad-nosed Whale, the Beaked Whale, and the Finner, are whales of a small size, resembling the last, and are sometimes seen upon our own coast.

The Cachalot, or Spermaceti Whale, though found in the northern seas, abounds chiefly in the southern ocean. It is of great length, and a most unwieldy-looking creature; the head in some species being longer than the body. It is noted for the fineness of the oil which it yields, and for a peculiar substance called spermaceti, which is found chiefly in its enormous head. Ambergris is likewise obtained from the intestines of this animal. They are exceedingly fierce, and one has been known to attack and sink even a large whaler. They are seen in large herds usually headed by a male of very large dimensions.

The Narwhal, or Sea Unicorn, is an inhabitant of the frozen seas, and one of the most ferocious of the whale tribe; what is called its horn is, in fact, a tooth, which grows from the upper jaw of the creature: it is of a substance like ivory, but harder, and spirally twisted, and grows to a very sharp point. With this it will attack whatever comes in its way, and it is said in an especial manner to direct its attacks against the common or Whalebone Whale, and to be able, with this deadly weapon, to penetrate to the heart of its enemy with one thrust.

In the whale tribe are included the Porpoise and the Dolphin, which are often seen on our shores; and the Lamantin, by others called the Sea Cow, found in the Atlantic, on the coasts of Africa and America. From its round head, face decorated with mustaches, and its breasts, and being often seen seated on an isolated rock, may have arisen many of the stories of Mermaids.

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