High Noon on the High Seas 209 



lining the upper jaws and palate. The jaw is long and narrow and the 

 whole apparatus is perfectly devised for seizing, holding, and chop- 

 ping up large, slender, slippery things like giant squid. Lower jaws 

 damaged in youth have been known to grow into corkscrewlike de- 

 formities, apparently without impairing the health or growth of the 

 animals. The diameter of the throat is also amply sufficient to swal- 

 low a fair-sized shark, or even a man. 



A bull sperm of sixty feet is considered large today, but there is 

 a belief that sperms grew to a greater length in bygone times when 

 they were less molested. This belief is quite incompatible with two 

 assertions. First, there was a period of some fifty years, extending 

 from the beginning of this century until 1951, when this species was 

 hardly hunted at all. Second, it is asserted that the sperm, whale has 

 an exceedingly short life span, maybe even as short as ten years. Both 

 of these cannot be true, and it is probable that the average length of 

 the males is about sixty feet, while exceptional specimens reach 

 seventy-five or even eighty feet today as they have always done, 

 though they are seldom encountered, for the simple reason that they 

 are not extensively hunted any more. Roy Chapman Andrews took 

 a fourteen-foot-eight-inch unborn baby from a thirty-two-foot 

 mother. The young are suckled for six months, the mother floating 

 at the surface and the baby taking her nipple in the corner of his 

 mouth, and are over twenty feet long when weaned. They appear 

 to be fully adult at three and become sexually mature at four years. 

 What happens after this is not wholly known, though specimens 

 branded when full grown have been captured up to twenty-two 

 years later. Young appear to be born at any time of the year. 



Sperm whales, and especially lone bulls, are not animals to be trifled 

 with. Normally they are fairly shy, but they will rush to protect 

 wounded females or young, and have often been known to attack 

 boats. On occasion they have attacked ships, and one sank a 400-ton 

 steamer by charging it amidships and staving it in so that it sank in a 

 few minutes. Even when not being deliberately aggressive they are 

 more dangerous than the baleen whales, with the notable exception 

 of the gray whale, which we shall meet later. Their habit of standing 

 on their heads with their tails in the air before sounding and their 

 considerable agility make them dangerous to small, open boats. All 

 whalers agree that they are tougher to kill and take longer to sue- 



