550 H.S.E. Albert L, Prince of Monaco, [May 27, 



running out is continued from this boat, and sometimes the three 

 whale boats are rapidly cleared of their lines. But, with the friction 

 which such a length of line offers, and to which the resistance of 

 the boats towed has to be added, the cetacean reduces its speed very 

 materially, so that there is no difficulty in maintaining it. Little by 

 little the line is got back into the boats, and after various alterna- 

 tions the weakened animal advances more and more slowly, and 

 close to the surface, where it is obliged to breathe more and more 

 frequently. 



Often many hours have passed before the favourable moment 

 arrives for despatching the unfortunate victim and terminating the 

 drama, and this is accompanied by the most serious circumstances of 

 the whole enterpise. The exhausted animal stretches itself on the 

 surface, almost motionless before the boat, where the harponeer now 

 holds a lance which has a considerable length, because it must pass 

 through the whole thickness of the blubber and of the muscles 

 before it reaches the vital organs. He approaches the animal by 

 its side, so as not to be struck by the tail, which is thrown vio- 

 lently into the air so soon as the cetacean receives this new wound ; 

 but it is not always possible to avoid being struck by a fin, and 

 especially in the case of large animals, this may wreck a boat. In 

 spite of all the skill of the crew an accident of this kind may 

 occur, and I speak only from memory of cases mentioned by various 

 captains in which a cachalot, an old and solitary individual, has 

 seized and crushed between its jaws the boat which has attacked 

 it. It has even been reported that two ships have been sunk by these 

 animals in their fury, their enormous wedge-shaped head becoming 

 in these circumstances a formidable ram. 



When a cetacean of any size has been several times pierced, the 

 red track which spreads far over the sea gives the idea of great car- 

 nage. In fact the cetaceans contain a very large amount of blood, 

 and before the last hour when they lose it in torrents, they have 

 already left behind them a track of ten or fifteen kilometres in length 

 over which they have towed the boats. 



I have said that apart from the interest which each species of 

 cetacean offers of itself (and it appears that many of them are hardly 

 known at all), it is in the first place the contents of their stomachs 

 which occupy us. The species which I have taken differ much in the 

 nature of their prey, and their mouths are armed correspondingly. 

 The right whale is content to absorb the Plankton composed of ex- 

 tremely small animals, which in some regions form a compact mass, 

 a real cloud ; and in order to keep out objects too large to pass 

 down its very small throat, its jaws are furnished with the well 

 known and valuable whalebone, which acts as a sieve. 



The Grampus, the Globiceps and the Cachalot, penetrate to a 

 depth probably much greater in search of cephalopods, and they 

 possess a dentition specially organised for seizing the gelatinous flesh 

 of the cephalopods. The scars which they bear over the whole of 



