370 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



know on what the ages are based further than that the young are 

 darker in color for a time. 



"How does the breathing of the big one sound to you?" the 

 doctor asked. 



" Like ours at Coney Island that died from lung trouble," I re- 

 plied, " and I would not have brought that animal down unless it was 

 the only one to be had during the season." 



" I think I'll give her about ten days to live," replied the doctor. 



As th(^se were not my Avhales, I declined to talk of their prospects 

 of life to several reporters who knew me, and the whale in question 

 died of pneumonia on June lltli, just a week after its arrival in New 

 York, and several days before the trained ear of Dr. Latham had 

 allotted its span of life. 



The male came to its death by an accident at 9 p. m. on June 

 24th, just twenty days after arrival. An eel got into its blow-hole 

 and it drowned. According to an account published in the Xew 

 York Sun of Monday, July 26, 1897, said to be obtained from Dr. 

 Tarleton H. Bean, director of the aquarium, the whale " was as 

 healthy a one as ever spouted until late on Friday afternoon, the 

 24th, when one of the keepers noticed that something was wrong. 

 His attention was attracted by the loud wheezing that accompanied 

 each blow that the whale made when he came up for air. The 

 wheezing could be heard all over the aquarium. Dr. Bean was sent 

 for. He was certain that the wdiale's lungs were all right. He 

 cited a fact, known to the custodian and to all the keepers, that the 

 mammal for the past month had remained under water a little 

 longer after he came to the surface to blow. This convinced Dr. 

 Bean that the whale's lungs w'crc sound and that some other cause 

 of illness must be found." 



Then the whale coughed out a jiiece of an eel tliat it had bit in 

 two, and as it came up to blow again there was another piece hanging 

 from the blow-hole which could not shut, and so let water into the 

 lungs. Dr. Bean ordered the water drawn off the tank in order to 

 get at the animal, but a fornier superintendent, who had planned the 

 tanks, had put in such small drainage pipes that by the time the 

 water was drawn down so that the men could get at the whale it 

 was dead. 



I do not believe that a white whale lived two years in Boston, 

 because this subarctic animal could not endure the extremes of Bos- 

 ton's temperatures without contracting lung disease in some form. 

 Think of such an animal living through climatic conditions that an 

 Eskimo can not stand, and in a public institution where thousands of 

 people arc vitiating the air! 



Animals which live wholly in water are more susceptible to 



