CETACEA 123

as dogs. One of his pets would, he says, ‘invite me
to the garden by drumming upon my knee, and by
a look of such expression as it was not possible to
misinterpret. If this rhetoric did not immediately
succeed, he would take the skirt of my coat between
his teeth and pull it with all his force.

CETACEA.— In this order are grouped most of
the mammals that live in the water. Like the mammals
of the land, their young are born alive, and are fed
with milk in their babyhood; and the mothers bear
great affection towards their offspring, and will even
risk their lives in shielding them from danger. They
all have horizontal tails and no hind limbs, although
the rudiments of legs are often found within the body
frame. They all breathe air, and have an elaborate
development of blood-vessels enabling them to take
their breathing leisurely, long intervals elapsing be-
tween their inspirations. They are conveniently sorted
into two main divisions, those with teeth and those
without, the toothed division including the dolphins
and some of the whales, the toothless consisting of
the whalebone whales; the relationship between the
two being so distant that it has been proposed to
have two separate orders for them instead of one.

The toothless whales have their mouths furnished,
more or less abundantly, with the baleen or whale-
bone plates through which they strain off the mouth-
fuls of water in which they catch the multitude of
small animals on which they live. The right whales
have the most baleen and the smallest throats ; ‘a
herring, as the sailors say, ‘is big enough to choke