64 THE WHALES 



The whales in this vicinity are very sociable and have 

 been known to follow a yacht and to lie by it for several 

 hours, perhaps assuming that the vessel was another 

 whale of some kind. 



A whale followed a ship from San Francisco to a South 

 American port, several thousand miles, and could not be 

 driven away by bullets, though an effective method would 

 have been to pour over ashes and oil, any impurity in the 

 water being offensive to the huge animals. Several years 

 ago a large school formed off Santa CataHna Island, 

 occupying about five acres, for several days, boats going 

 out to watch their majestic evolutions. I saw one individ- 

 ual rise out of the water until it appeared to stand on its 

 tail, resembling a rock rising from the sea. 



While colossal and cumbersome in every way, the whale 

 is very active. In the harbor of Bermuda a large whale 

 jumped fairly over a boat from a British man-of-war, the 

 men seeing the tail clear them by twenty feet. All old 

 whalers tell of prodigious leaps they have seen the animals 

 make. The young, generally one or two, are tenderly 

 cared for, the mother often supporting the calf on her 

 flippers. The California gray whale is so soHcitous for its 

 offspring that it is very dangerous to approach it when 

 the whales are young, the parent charging boats and 

 destroying them with every evidence of fury. The tail 

 is the principal weapon. The whalebone whale when at- 

 tacked will lie on the surface and thrash the water from 

 side to side with blows which sound like explosions and 

 which can be heard for several miles. 



The whale is one of the most valuable of all animals. 

 A single individual captured by a New London whaler 



