Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub
[graphic][merged small][merged small]

THE Rorqual is the largest of all Whales, and consequently is of all animals the largest now in existence. It sometimes reaches the enormous length of eighty or even a hundred feet. Its food consists not only of the small animals on which the Common Whale subsists, also of fish of considerable size.

The blubber of the Rorqual does not, in most instances, yield oil in sufficient quantities to make this powerful and active creature a great prize to the but Whale-fishers.

Its habits are different from those of the Common Whale. It is less quiet in its movements, seldom lying motionless on the surface of the water, but making

way at the rate of about five miles an hour. When struck by the harpooner, the suddenness of its descent is such as very frequently to break the line. At other times, the rapid rising of the wounded creature for breath, the violent movements which its agony occasions, the brandishing of its vast tail, or the whirlpool produced by its sinking, have either of them been known to cause the destruction of the boats within its reach.

The Rorqual is occasionally met with on the shores of our islands, and in the northern seas it is very common. It is often seen off the coast of Zetland and Orkney, and, now and then, descends to the more southern parts of our seas.

The enormous skeleton which was exhibited, in a temporary building erected for it, near the Royal Mews, Charing Cross, a few years ago, belonged to this species. It had been towed into the harbour of Ostend. The following are the measurements of that specimen :-Total length, 95 ft.; breadth, 18 ft.; length of head, 22 ft.; length of spine, 69 ft. 6 in.; breadth of tail, 22 ft. 6 in. The weight of it when taken, was 249 tons, or 480,000 pounds, and 4,000 gallons of oil were extracted from the blubber.

[graphic]
[merged small][graphic]

"Having as briefly as well as I could, despatched the tribe of QUADRUPEDS, I shall next take as brief and transient a view of the FEATHERED TRIBE. And here we have another large province to expatiate in, if we should descend to everything wherein the workmanship of the Almighty appears. But I must contract my survey as much as may be, and shall therefore give only such hints and touches upon this curious family of animals, as may serve for samples of the rest of what might be observed."Physico-Theology by the Rev. W. Derham, 1711.

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

THE Condor was very imperfectly known to naturalists until the beginning of the present century. Exaggerated statements were made of the enormous size and rapacious habits of this species of Vulture; but a modern traveller, Baron von Humboldt, in describing the bird such as it really is, has corrected the accounts which had been received, and which had found a place in several useful and interesting works of Natural History.

It is chiefly met with in South America, inhabiting lofty and snow-covered mountains, at an elevation of from 10,000 to 15,000 feet above the level of the sea; and when driven by hunger, descending into the plains, which it quits as soon as it has satisfied its appetite, as if unable to endure the heavier atmosphere and warmer climate below.

« AnteriorContinuar »