150 SPORT IN NORTH AMERICA. 



and inform my friends of what was going on at the 

 end of Long Island. 



Everybody on board was asleep, except the man 

 on the watch, whom I hailed at once, telling him 

 that I had something to say to his officers. The 

 cautious sailor lit up the binnacle lamp, and giving 

 me a hand up to the deck, went to wake up the 

 two "twins," who at once asked me down into their 

 cabin. Their astonishment when I told them the 

 pilot's news was immense, 



" Good gracious ! " cried the first. " If we could 

 start at once ! " 



" Why not ? Let's make all ready without saying 

 a Avord to anybody. At daybreak we'll get our 

 papers all in order, and whoever goes to the Custom- 

 house can get aboard as the ship drops down the 

 bay to Sandy Hook." 



one of these creatures taken in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good 

 Hope, and gave M. Cuvier an opportunity of describing the remarkable 

 distinctions which exist between the northern and the southern whale. 

 The points of difference, as regards the osseous structure, consist prin- 

 cipally in the joining of the seven cervical vertebrae, and in the addi- 

 tional two pairs of ribs. 



The head of the southern whale is much more depressed than that of 

 the northern ; its pectoral fins are longer and more pointed ; the lobes 

 of its tail are more indented. The whale-fishermen all agree in the 

 opinion that it is sensibly smaller than the Arctic whale, its ordinary 

 dimensions being from forty to fifty feet long. 



It would seem that the equator forms, in some sort, a line of demar- 

 cation between the domains of the northern and those of the southern 

 whale ; but it may be easily supposed that all observations with regard 

 to the giant of the ocean must necessarily be somewhat inexact. 



