368 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



question arises, "Wliy do tliej do tliis? At the new aquarium now 

 at Battery Park, New York city, the big sturgeon always circles to 

 the left except when feeding. 



The two whales at Coney Island were good-sized ones, nearly 

 ten feet long, and they raced around, side by side, and played for 

 nearly two hours before they began to take the eels which had been 

 in the tank several days, altliough the large mammals had been with- 

 out food for at least seven days. On the way down I had noticed a 

 difference in the sound of their breathing, that of the female being 

 sharp and clear, while her mate seemed to have a hoarseness, and 

 occasionally gave something like a cough. I called attention to this 

 and told Mr. Coup that the animal had some lung trouble. He con- 

 sulted a man who professed to know about these animals, and then 

 reported his opinion that the cough was nothing to fear, " merely a 

 little water in the blow-hole." 



" This may be true," I replied ; " I'm not a medical man, but I've 

 heard many consumptives cough, and that whale imitates them. I 

 doubt if it lives a month." 



It lived just twenty-six days after its arrival at Coney Island. 

 The last five days of its life it took no food, and its labored breathing- 

 was annoying to all who knew the cause of it. Then came a touch- 

 ing display of affection. The female slackened her pace day by day 

 to accommodate it to that of her constantly weakening companion, 

 and as the end neared she put her broad transverse tail under his and 

 propelled him along. lie stopped breathing at 10 a. m., but his mate 

 kept up her efforts, occasionally making a swift run around the 

 tank, as if to say, " Come, follow me," and then slowing up at his 

 side, resumed the work of sculling him along, as before. Rude men 

 expressed pity for the living one, and after my men had rigged a der- 

 rick and hoisted her mate from the pool she would rise higher out 

 of water when she came up to blow, remembering that he had gone 

 out over the top of the tank. An autopsy by local physicians, whose 

 names have been forgotten, assisted by a medical student then in my 

 employ, now Dr. J. R. Latham, 126 West Eleventh Street, New York 

 city, disclosed the fact that the whale died of pneumonia. 



A white whale which reached the Broadway aquarium about 

 July 1st, after mine came, lived seven months, dying January 28, 

 1878. My whale was either diseased when captured or took a cold 

 at Isle aux Coudres. The New York one was sound all summer, and 

 I told Mr. Coup that it might live for years, but the artificial heat 

 of the aquarium in winter was not what a subarctic animal could 

 endure, and it succumbed as most of Peary's Eskimos did in New 

 York last winter. Tlic autopsy on this whale was performed by 

 Dr. P. D. AVcisse, professor of practical and surgical anatomy of the 



