THE WHALE'S TAIL. 357 



water, which, if it found its way to their lungs, would 

 prove as injurious to them as to man. Yet, by a slight 

 alteration in the cartilages at the top of the windpipe, 

 and in the direction of the air-tube, their feeding in the 

 deep ocean is made as safe for them as that of other 

 mammals in the balmy breeze. 



The tail, or caudal fin, is the most important append- 

 age, and the chief motive agent of this mightiest of all 

 animals that swim the ocean-stream. In most fishes the 

 tail rises vertically, but, as we have said, in the whale it 

 is flat and horizontal ; not more than four or five feet in 

 length, but fully twenty feet in breadth. It consists of 

 two beds or layers of muscles, connected with an exten- 

 sive layer which surrounds the body, and enclosed by a 

 thin coat of blubber. Of its enormous force many exam- 

 ples might be adduced. With a single stroke it can hurl 

 a large boat, fully manned, into the air. Small boats are 

 but as straws before it. Here is an experience recorded 

 by Captain Markham. With three companions, he was 

 in pursuit of a whale. They pulled close alongside the 

 monster, which received three harpoons in its body. The 

 wounds maddened it, and one of the hunters loaded his 

 gun and fired. Captain Markham swept his boat round 

 as speedily as possible, but failed to get clear of the 

 brute's tail, which it had thrown up out of the water on 

 receiving the contents of the gun ; descending with ter- 

 rific violence, it caught the gunwale of the boat, and 

 knocked the captain over the stern. " Before coming to 

 the surface," he says, " I imagined the dingy had been 

 smashed to pieces, which would have been rather a bad 

 case for us, as the other boats were some way off, and 



