[Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley]@TWC D-Link bookMadam How and Lady Why CHAPTER XII--HOMEWARD BOUND 19/68
But if you want to know about the kinds of whales, you must ask Dr.Flower at the Royal College of Surgeons, and not me: and he will tell you wonderful things about them .-- How some of them have mouths full of strong teeth, like these porpoises; and others, like the great sperm whale in the South Sea, have huge teeth in their lower jaws, and in the upper only holes into which those teeth fit; others like the bottle-nose, only two teeth or so in the lower jaw; and others, like the narwhal, two straight tusks in the upper jaw, only one of which grows, and is what you call a narwhal's horn. Oh yes.
I know of a walking-stick made of one. And strangest of all, how the right-whales have a few little teeth when they are born, which never come through the gums; but, instead, they grow all along their gums, an enormous curtain of clotted hair, which serves as a net to keep in the tiny sea-animals on which they feed, and let the water strain out. You mean whalebone? Is whalebone hair? So it seems.
And so is a rhinoceros's horn.
A rhinoceros used to be hairy all over in old times: but now he carries all his hair on the end of his nose, except a few bristles on his tail.
And the right-whale, not to be done in oddity, carries all his on his gums. But have no whales any hair? No real whales: but the Manati, which is very nearly a whale, has long bristly hair left.
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