Besides these, there are suspended from the palate many other small laminæ of the thickness of a quill, a few inches long, and likewise terminating in a fringe. Thus the whole roof of the mouth resembles a shaggy fur, under which lies the soft and spongy tongue, a monstrous mass often ten feet broad and eighteen feet long. [Illustration: Clio borealis.] This whole formation is beautifully adapted to the peculiar nourishment of the whale, which does not consist, as one might suppose, of the larger fishes, but of the minute animals, (_Medusæ_, _Entomostraca_, _Clio borealis_, and other pteropod molluscs,) with which its pasture-grounds in the northern seas abound. To gather food, it swims rapidly with open mouth over the surface; and on closing the wide gates, and expelling the foaming streams, the little creatures remain entangled by thousands in the fringy thicket as in a net; there to be crushed and bruised by the tongue into a savoury pulp. Fancy the vast numbers requisite to keep a monster of seventy tons in good condition. The back of the whale is usually of a fine glossy black, marked with whitish rays, which have some resemblance to the veins of wood. This mixture of colours presents an agreeable appearance, especially when the back of the fish is illuminated with the rays of the sun. The under part of the trunk and of the lower jaw is of a dead white. The skin is about an inch thick, and covers a layer of fat of fifteen inches; a most excellent coat for keeping the whale warm and increasing its buoyancy, but at the same time the chief cause which induces man to pursue it with the deadly harpoon. The usual march of the whale over the waters is rarely more than four miles an hour, but its speed increases to an astonishing rapidity when terror or the agonies of pain drive it madly through the sea. In its sportive humours it is sometimes seen to spring out of the water, and to remain suspended for a moment in the air. On falling back again into the sea, high foam-crested fountains spout forth on all sides, and mighty waves propagate the tumult in widening circles over the troubled ocean. Or else it raises its bulky head vertically on high, so that the deceived mariner fancies he sees some black rock looming out of the distant waters. But suddenly the fancied cliff turns round and brandishes playfully its enormous flukes in the air, or lashes the waters with such prodigious power, that the sound rolls far away like thunder over the deserts of the ocean. Strange to say, the giant is of so cowardly a nature, that the sight of a sea-bird often fills him with the greatest terror, and causes him to avoid the imaginary danger by a sudden plunge into the deep. Besides man, a vast number of enemies, great and small, persecute the whale and embitter his life.