I2 g A BOOK OF WHALES 



they reach a velocity of seven to nine miles an 

 hour. This velocity is so great that whales have 

 been found to dive to the bottom of water a mile 

 in depth and to break the lower jaw by the violence 

 of the impact. The time which whales can remain 

 under water has been also exaggerated. It has been 

 asserted that they can endure submersion for "many 

 hours " ; as a general rule five or ten minutes is 

 the period, varied by two minutes' breathing space. 

 But when feeding, fifteen or twenty minutes is not 

 unusual. Scoresby mentions a harpooned whale as 

 having dived for a period of forty minutes, and 

 Scammon assigns one hour and twenty minutes as 

 the limit of endurance. 



The Greenland whale produces a single foal or 

 "sucker" at a birth ; the young creature, when born, 

 is 10 to 14 feet lono-. The mother does not desert 



i o 



it until the expiration of a year or so, and the amount 

 of maternal affection exhibited has been often com- 

 mented upon. Scoresby, who was compelled to 

 mingle commercial enterprise with due regard to the 

 sentimentality of the twenties, remarks that "there 

 is something extremely painful in the destruction of 

 a whale when thus evincing a degree of affectionate 

 regard for its offspring that w r ould do honour to 

 the superior intelligence of human beings ; yet the 

 object of the adventure, the value of the prize, 

 the joy of the capture, cannot be sacrificed to feelings 

 of compassion " ! 



This whale is not really gregarious ; when a 

 number are seen together it is an accident due to 



