204 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



at a time to take a fifteen-minute rest in rotation. The Nantucketers 

 were, as we have seen, very experienced oarsmen, and by the year 

 17 1 2, when this incident occurred, they had had twenty years in 

 which to learn how to maneuver dead whales ashore through the 

 currents that swirl round their little island. 



However, the significance of Captain Christopher Hussey's per- 

 formance lies neither in the boldness of his endeavor nor in the gar- 

 gantuan effort of his crew. It is entirely due to the nature of the beast 

 that he killed. Whether he did this by design or, as we have con- 

 jectured above with what we hope is legitimate literary license, at 

 least partly by mistake does not detract from the fact that this was 

 the first shot *'fired" in a new industry, or, rather, one that had been 

 extinct for three thousand years. No whalers, since the Phoenicians 

 operated in the eastern Mediterranean at the time of Tiglath-Pileser 

 of Assyria, had attempted to capture these tough, deep-sea creatures. 

 All the western Europeans had contented themselves with harassing 

 the comparatively stupid, slow-moving right whales which spend 

 most of the year along coasts or ice fronts. It took a Nantucketer, 

 and one lost in an open boat at that, to break with the old and es- 

 tablish a new tradition. What was so important about this whale? 



The Sperm Whale (Physeter catodon) is the largest of the 

 Toothed Whales, or Odontoceti. There is some doubt as to whether 

 the toothed and the toothless, or baleen, whales should be included 

 in the same group of animals; they are so unlike in so many signifi- 

 cant points of their anatomy. The sperm whales are likewise very 

 distinct from the rest of the toothed whales — the ziphioids, narwhals, 

 belugas, killers, dolphins, and porpoises. There are only two sperm 

 whales, the second being a rare little creature of rather remarkable 

 appearance known as the Pigmy Sperm Whale (Kogia breviceps) 

 which grows to a length of only about twelve feet, and has an un- 

 derslung jaw like that of a shark. This little animal has never been 

 observed at sea, and even stranded specimens are rare. It feeds on 

 cuttlefish and squids, and has fourteen slender, recurved teeth on 

 each side of the lower jaw. A form found in the Indian Ocean, to 

 which the name Kogia simiis has been given, has a distinctly up- 

 turned snout and two additional teeth in the upper jaw, but only 

 nine teeth on each side of the lower. It is black above and light gray 

 below, and the narrow mouth is bright pink. There is a small hydro- 



