[Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley]@TWC D-Link book
Madam 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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