Late Noon in the West 263 



The sperm whale is perhaps the strangest of all mammals found 

 upon this planet. Not only is it vastly aloof from all other animals 

 and very different from its nearest living relative — the tiny pigmy 

 sperm — it seems to be constructed upon a quite unique plan. It is a 

 highly specialized animal dependent upon what one might at first 

 suppose to be a very specialized food — namely, squids. Most people 

 don't even know what a squid is, yet these animals probably make up 

 a greater aggregate bulk of pure animal matter on this earth than any 

 other two kinds of living creatures put together. They exist in count- 

 less millions of apparently endless masses in every ocean and sea in 

 the world, and almost three quarters of this planet is covered by 

 oceans and seas which are on the average nearly two and a half miles 

 deep. Throughout this vast volume of liquid there are probably more 

 squids than anything else. 



These animals, however, migrate constantly all over the map, and 

 in order to keep up with them and to save time and effort in obtain- 

 ing a good meal, the sperm whales follow them around thousands of 

 miles of oceanic passages per annum. Their exact movements are not 

 yet fully comprehended, but it is recognized that they are concen- 

 trated in certain areas at certain times. (These areas will readily be 

 seen on the end-paper maps.) There are thirty-six great areas of such 

 concentration, all of which were originally discovered by the whal- 

 ers, but the coming and going of the whales between the early and 

 the late part of summer makes no sense in the over-all. It can only be 

 said that they are in one area at one of these times, and in another, 

 usually adjacent area, during the other. Where they go in the winter 

 is not known at all. 



The behavior of the whalemen, especially those from America, is 

 even less explicable and no better understood. As we remarked above, 

 it appears to have been dominated throughout the so-called "golden 

 age" by an overpowering desire to get back home. Nonetheless, vast 

 numbers of whalemen succumbed to the obviously worthwhile 

 charms of maidens, grass-skirted or not, in all parts of the world. 

 They left an ample progeny but neither their language nor any other 

 remnants of their culture. Many of these deserters, in fact, were 

 Americans only in name, and they often came from the very places 

 where they finally abandoned their ships. This is perhaps explicable, 

 but what induced the native-bom Americans to go a-whaling? Was it 



