WHALES AND WHALING 



puckers along its upper side, and sometimes reaches a 

 length of more than a hundred feet. Round the Maldive 

 and Seychelle Islands, in the Indian Ocean, are the fa- 

 vourite hunting-grounds for them, and the American and 

 Scandinavian whalers have almost a monopoly there. 



The typical toothed whale is the Sperm or Cachalot, 

 eighty feet long, and frequenting both the northern and 

 southern seas. It is easily to be distinguished from any 

 other of its tribe, if only by its enormous square head ; 

 the back is black, the belly white, the skin soft and silky. 

 It is gregarious, and travels in shoals of a couple of 

 hundred. More pugnacious than most other species, it 

 will turn to bay when attacked, and will deliberately 

 charge or butt the pursuing ship. It is hunted princi- 

 pally for the sake of the oil secreted in its head and in a 

 tube running along its back (spermaceti) ; its teeth yield 

 an inferior sort of ivory ; its body is used up like those of 

 other kinds, and ambergris is taken from its entrails. 



It has become proverbial on account of the love and 

 care bestowed by the mother on her young; and no 

 wonder. Over and over again fishermen have seen the 

 mother sacrifice her life for the sake of her little one. 

 Indeed, when a whale-boat encounters a suckling mother, 

 it invariably attacks the young one, knowing that, in her 

 anxiety to save the offspring, the older animal will not 

 only interpose her body between it and the boat, but will 

 be so taken up with shielding it that she will become an 

 easy prey to the harpoons. She will even put her fin 

 under the little thing's body to help it to swim the faster 

 when pursued. 



244 



