280 SALMONIA. 



our whalers — with Captain Scoresby for in- 

 stance: you would then have enjoyed sport 

 of a new kind. 



Hal. — I should like much to see a whale 

 taken, but I do not think the sight worth the 

 dangers and privations of such a voyage. It 

 would only be an amusing spectacle and not 

 an enterprise, unless indeed I employed my- 

 self the harpoon ; and after all it must be a 

 tedious operation, that of watching the sink- 

 ing and rising of a fish obedient to a natural 

 instinct, which, in this instance, is the cause 

 of his death. 



PoiET, — How? 



Hal. — The whale, having no air bladder, 

 can sink to the lowest depths of the ocean, 

 and, mistaking the harpoon for the teeth of a 

 sword fish or a shark, he instantly descends, 

 this beino^ his manner of freeinor himself from 

 these enemies who cannot bear the pressure 

 of a deep ocean, and from ascending and de- 

 scending in small space, he puts himself in the 

 power of the whaler ; whereas, if he knew his 

 force, and were to swim on the surface in a 

 straight line, he would break or destroy the 



