Beyond the Horizon 267 



sometimes even rivers, rather than the open ocean. 

 Their average length is five feet. They are sociable 

 animals, usually traveling in herds, and can often be 

 seen sporting playfully. Indeed, the sight of these at- 

 tractive creatures is familiar to nearly every person 

 who has had occasion to sail the sea, for their distri- 

 bution is almost world wide. The bottle-nosed por- 

 poise {Tursiops tnincatus) is the most numerous of 

 those along our Eastern shores. It follows shoals of 

 herrings, on which it feeds, and is frequently caught 

 with them in the nets of fishermen. In the spring, when 

 the herrings make their seasonal run, the occurrence of 

 this porpoise in Hempstead Harbor is not uncommon. 

 To me there is something majestic in the motion of this 

 animal as it plunges forward, alternately rising to blow 

 and disappearing gracefully under the waves. 



The so-called "spouting" or "blowing'' of cetaceans 

 has not been the least of their curious attributes; and 

 truly the spouting of a large whale is a spectacle never 

 to be forgotten. It is not, as is commonly believed, 

 even by many whalers, the discharge of water taken in 

 through the mouth; it is simply the natural process of 

 breathing. Bear in mind that cetaceans hold their 

 breath for longer intervals than do land animals ; there- 

 fore, in expelling it much greater emphasis is used. In 

 rising to the surface, they forcibly rid their lungs of 

 the air taken in with the previous inspiration, and this 

 outrushing air is charged with water vapor due to 

 ordinary respiratory changes; ^consequently, in the 

 colder regions where the spouting is really more evi- 

 dent, the vapor condenses and forms a conspicuous 

 column of spray. Now it often happens that the animal 



