4 1 8 Notes on Sport and Travel v 



as yet untaught by experience how nasty the world 

 can be, and happy in the unconsciousness of the 

 existence of taxes and butchers' bills. The fifty- 

 foot mother, too, was rolling about luxuriously within 

 reach, evidently delighted with the strength and 

 vivacity of her offspring ; and, I have no doubt, 

 absolutely certain in her own mind that it was by 

 far the most perfect baby whale ev-er born. Ever 

 and anon she swept one of her great silver flippers 

 over it, and positively cuddling it to her side, she 

 rolled over and over with it in the sea like a young 

 human mother with her first-born on the warm fire- 

 side rug. 



They are but animals, these whales, — nay, even but 

 marine, legless, voiceless animals ; but I question 

 whether the breaking up of these little family parties 

 by the harpooners, paid by the oilman who has no 

 idea of a whale except as the producer of so much 

 oil, does not cause as much suffering as would be 

 developed in the family of the oilman himself were 

 he to quit his shop (let us hope for a higher sphere), 

 without leaving a sharp foreman behind him to carry 

 on the business and possibly marry his widow. 



When I talk of the affection displayed in the 

 domestic arrangements of whales in general, I do 

 not wish to assert that these arrangements are 

 permanent and perennial, — indeed, I have seen things 

 which made me fear that in these matters whales 

 were sometimes terribly human ; but I can honestly 

 declare that in ordinary circumstances, father, mother, 



