Evening in the North 313 



coasts can be predicted by working out the rhythm of the seasons 

 in the appropriate hemisphere and then applying the simple rule 

 that the humpbacks go to the poles to feed in the warm half of the 

 year and return towards the equator to mate and breed in the cold 

 season. 



The mating of humpbacks can best be described in slang: it is 

 "quite something," and has intrigued whalers since early times be- 

 cause it is so noisy. Apparently, these fifty-foot creatures become 

 highly skittish at this time, frolicking about and administering ten-ton 

 blows to each other with their flippers while lolling side by side on 

 the surface, by way of expressing their mutual affection. These "ca- 

 resses" are stated to be audible for miles. Even in the absence of 

 sexual stimulation and provocation the humpback is more boisterous 

 than any other whale. It has all manner of navigational procedures; 

 it dives in all kinds of ways, stays below for quite unpredictable 

 lengths of time, often leaps clear out of the water, and seldom does 

 anything systematically. It is not a silly beast, even by our standards, 

 but it certainly behaves like a very sportive one. Doubtless it is in 

 reality just as concerned with earning a living and just as generally 

 bothered and bored as any other animal, including ourselves. 



In color the humpback is basically, or originally, black above and 

 white below, though in varying proportions depending upon age. 

 The flippers are white below, and the tail flukes are usually so, but 

 the actual color of all but the immature is an appalling mess. Due, 

 perhaps to the humpbacks' habit of invading shallows and of rolling 

 and frolicking about in such waters, their skins are invariably scarred 

 and abraded, and this in turn results in their becoming infested with 

 all manner of loathsome hangers-on. Huge sessile barnacles and 

 masses of stalked barnacles festoon their sides and cluster in all cracks, 

 crevices, folds, and other interstices. Vast "lice" — actually, strange, 

 almost bodiless, but many-legged creatures known as pycnogonids 

 — meander all over them by hooking their sharp claws into the skin, 

 and myriads of lesser, more-numerous-legged crustaceans scurry 

 hither and yon about their person. Certain molluscs bore into their 

 blubber, just as they do into driftwood, rock, or even concrete; 

 plume-headed worms either sink their gelatinous bodies into the 

 poor beast's flesh or construct voluted calcareous tunnels on its sur- 

 face; and only Nature knows what other freebooters bum rides on 



