Volume 16, Plate II / Mammalia (Mammals)

Greenland Whale

Balæna Mysticetus

Velvet-black mingled with grey and white and a yellowish tinge, this Polar giant attains fifty to sixty-five feet, its enormous head nearly a third of the bulk, with no dorsal fin and more than three hundred plates of baleen per side. Slow, timid and easily alarmed by the slightest splashing, it feeds on small medusae and shrimps, surfacing to blow and then diving for many minutes amid the Arctic ice.