Whales as the Whalers Knew Them 181 



of the whale, brought down from the time when it 

 lived alongshore, of rising up with head far above 

 the water, as a woodchuck rises on the land to 

 look for danger. 



It is further to be noted that undisturbed schools, 

 while spread out and while playing over several 

 square miles of the seas, will suddenly, and as 

 if answering a signal, all throw their tails into 

 the air and instantly and together disappear under 

 water. No trained soldiers ever stepped together 

 with greater precision than is shown by schools 

 of whales in this evolution. 



Do whales have vocal cords ? Can they sing 

 and roar ? Manifestly the men who know the 

 whales best think so. 



Herbert L. Aldrich, author of Arctic Alaska 

 and Siberia, in describing his experiences in an 

 Arctic whaler, says : 



"One of the most interesting of the [gamming] 

 yarns was that about the singing whales. When 

 I first heard it I took it for a joke, intended for 

 me to bite at. But one day there was a rehearsing 

 of experiences and I found that the ship masters 

 really believed that whales do sing. Captain 



