The white whale is said at times to attain a length of 20 feet, but its ordinary length is nearer 10 or 12 feet. It travels in irregular “schools” of from three to ten or fifteen individuals and usually rolls high out of water when it comes up to breathe. It enters sheltered bays and the lower courses of streams, mainly at night, in pursuit of fish, which furnish its main food supply. During the twilight hours of the Arctic summer night, glowing with beautiful colors, the ghostly white forms of these whales breaking the smooth blue-black surface of a far northern bay add the crowning effect of strange unworldly mystery to the scene. When on hunting trips in early autumn, I camped many times on the banks of narrow tide channels leading through the coastal tundra, and for hours during the darkness of night, as the tide was rising, heard the deep-sighing sound of their blowing, as schools of belugas fished up and down the current, often only 15 or 20 feet from where I lay. The oil and flesh of the white whale is highly prized by the Eskimos, and they not only pursue it in kyaks with harpoon and float, but set large-meshed nets of strong seal-skin cords off projecting points near entrances to bays. Young or medium-sized animals are often caught in this manner, but powerful adults often tear the nets to fragments. The beluga frequents broken pack ice along shore, and one trapped alive by the closing ice north of the Yukon early one winter was reported by the Eskimos to have uttered curious squeaking noises when they attacked and killed it--an interesting fact, as the beluga is said to be the only member of the whale family to make vocal sounds of any kind. When a school has its curiosity aroused by the approach of a boat or for any other cause, the members often raise their heads well out of water, one after the other, and take a deliberate look, then dive and swim to a safe distance before coming up again. The small size of the beluga has long saved it from organized pursuit. Recently it has been announced that its skin has become valuable for commercial purposes, and that many are being killed. If this continues, these harmless and interesting animals are likely soon to disappear from most of their present haunts, unless proper measures can be taken to protect them from undue killing. GREENLAND RIGHT WHALE, OR BOWHEAD (Balæna mysticetus) The Greenland right whale is one of the largest of sea mammals, reaching a length of from 50 to 60 feet, and has a marvelously specialized development. Its enormous head comprises about one-third of the total length, with a gigantic mouth provided with about 400 long, narrow plates of baleen, or whalebone, attached at one end and hanging in overlapping series from the roof of the mouth. These thin plates of baleen rarely exceed a foot in width and are from 2 to over 10 feet long. One edge and the free end of each plate is bordered with a stiff hairlike fringe.