416 THE WORLD OF THE SEA. 
ocean; perhaps it was their honeymoon! They were attacked 
and wounded ; one being killed, the other threw himself upon the 
beloved body, uttering frightful moans. At the mouth of the Elbe, 
the same year, eight females were stranded on the bank; soon 
after, their eight husbands arrived to visit their corpses. The 
male always follows his wounded partner and remains with her. 
The female does not show the same tenderness or care. 
Like all mammalia, the whale suckles her young. How 
much of the precious nourishment does she give at each meal? 
She exhibits for her nursling very ardent and courageous attach- 
ment. When a little whale has been harpooned, the mother will 
not be long in coming to his help; she comes close to him when 
he rises to the surface of the water to breathe; she seems to 
excite him to flee ; sometimes she dives beneath him, and bears 
him on her back; while he, slipping, and often upset by the 
action of the waves, tries hard to support himself, by clinging 
to his mother with his two fins. She very rarely abandons her 
young while he lives. While so engaged, the mother whale may 
easily be wounded, for she forgets entirely her own safety, that 
she may devote herself to the preservation of her offspring. She 
rushes amongst the enemy, disregarding all dangers; even, after 
being several times wounded, she will stay near her young one, 
if she cannot drag him away with her. In her maternal agony, 
she swims to and fro, beats the sea violently; and the wildness 
of her movements is a certain sign of the poignancy of her grief. 
Those species of whale which have a fin on their backs, and 
large folds on the belly, are called Rorguals, or razor backed. 
The body is not so cumbrous as that of the ordinary whale ; hence 
they swim more rapidly, and when they dive, they can remain longer 
under water, for these reasons the fishermen seldom give them 
chase. 
Rorquals are, as a family, still larger than whales; Scoresby 
speaks of one that was one hundred and twenty English feet in 
length. These animals are the real giants of creation. In 1828, 
a very fine rorqual was cast on shore at St. Cyprien, in the eastern 
Pyrenees, which has been described by M. Companyo. 
Of all the great fisheries which are carried on in different 
