There are a number of varieties of whales; the three principal of which are the common Greenland, or what sailors call the right whale, the "razorback" or "finner;" and, thirdly, the cachelot or sperm whale. These three varieties do not differ very essentially in their general structure, though each has its peculiarities. The common full grown right whale varies in length from fifty to seventy feet. Many exaggerated notions are held respecting the size of the whale. Writers of standard works of history have stated that they were frequently found an hundred and fifty or sixty feet in length; and that they had been found even of the extreme length of two hundred and fifty feet. But such is not the fact; they seldom will exceed the length above stated, and measure round the body, directly behind the head, from thirty to forty feet. The head is of great size, and occupies one third of the whole extent from snout to tail. The greatest circumference of the body is just back of the head, whence it tapers sharply away towards the tail. The mouth of the whale is extremely large and long, and will admit, when opened wide, a whaleboat with its crew, if placed crosswise of the jaw,—cases[163] have been known where the whole length of a boat has thus been taken in. The animal has no fin upon the back, and the two side fins are five or six feet broad, and nine or ten feet in length. The tail or "flukes," as the seamen term it, is some twenty-five feet broad, in the shape of a crescent, and is appended horizontally. This is a dangerous and powerful instrument with which the whale often deals destruction to men and boats, or whatever chances to be in the way during what the sailors term her "flurry," or when she is in the agonies of death. Boats are frequently thrown high into the air, and broken into ten thousand pieces by a stroke from the whale's "flukes." The eyes of the whale are not larger than those of an ox,—the color of the body is mainly black; the under part of the head and abdomen partly white, and partly of a speckled gray. The two spout-holes of the "right" whale are on the top of the head, and descend perpendicular into it for the length of twelve inches or so to the windpipe. The throat is quite small; an inch and a half is the extreme diameter of the gullet in the largest right whales. The food of these whales is, of course, of a very minute nature; they feed upon a multitude of smaller inhabitants of the ocean; and the mouth is provided with a remarkable apparatus, composed of numerous whale-bones extending from the centre of the arch to the lips, tapering away into mere bristles, and forming a kind of fringe, by which means the small particles of food are retained; not so with the sperm whale; they are distinguished by having teeth in the lower jaw, and but one spout-hole on the upper part of the snout. The sperm whale attains to a great size; sometimes reaching[164] the length of eighty feet; the head is of enormous