Then came the fins, and after them the upper jaw, with the whalebone attached to it.

The "right" whale has no teeth like the sperm whale.

In place of teeth it has the well-known substance called whalebone, which grows from the roof of its mouth in a number of broad thin plates, extending from the back of the head to the snout.

The lower edges of these plates of whalebone are split into thousands of hairs like bristles, so that the inside roof of a whale's mouth resembles an enormous blacking brush! The object of this curious arrangement is to enable the whale to catch the little shrimps and small sea-blubbers, called "medusa;", on which it feeds.

I have spoken before of these last as being the little creatures that gave out such a beautiful pale-blue light at night.