While the bowheads are very heavy, they are not more than sixty-five feet in length. The tail is about twenty-five feet broad and six feet deep. One of these whales, taken in 1855 in the Okhotsk Sea by the ship _Adeline_ of New Bedford, yielded two hundred and fifty barrels of oil, and another taken in 1861 by the _General Pike_ of the same port produced two hundred and seventy-four barrels. The whalebone whales carry their nostrils on the summit of the head. There are two spout holes; they are f-shaped, close together, and are located about eighteen feet from the end of the head. As they are nearer the lungs than in the case of the sperm whale, the vapor shoots up straight, spreading as it rises. These whales are encased in a layer of blubber which is from a foot to two feet in thickness. It is softer, more oily and also more sticky than that of the sperm whale. The tongue is thick and soft, is glued to the floor of the mouth, and generally contains about six barrels of oil, although it is said that the tongue of a very large bowhead has been known to yield twenty-five barrels. Such a tongue is equal to the weight of ten oxen. The flesh of the animal is coarse, firm and red in color. The flukes are very powerful. Hence the maxim, “Beware of a sperm whale’s jaw and a right whale’s flukes.” While the sperm whale is a great traveler, the right whale never crosses the equator. The female right whale is much larger than the female sperm, and at the breeding time she frequents shallow waters. Her affection for her young is very strong. It is said that she will clasp the calf with a fin very much as a human mother holds her child. The young of the bowhead mother is seldom seen, and it is thought that she keeps it under the ice until it is weaned. The bowhead’s method of feeding is like that of its relative, the right whale. The crustaceans in the North Atlantic and Arctic, called “slicks”, give the water the appearance of oily streaks. They are produced by different kinds of jellyfish and range in size from a pea to six inches or more in diameter. When the bowhead is feeding, the spread of the lips is about thirty feet, and the method of feeding is the same as that of the right whale.