412 THE KEEPER'S BOOK 



a shoal of pilchards or herrings, open-mouthed, with 

 a noise like the blasting of a quarry. These whales 

 and porpoises are not fish, for they breathe air, like 

 ourselves, with lungs, and have neither the gills nor 

 scales of fishes. The young are born like calves and 

 nourished with the mother's milk. These animals 

 have, in fact, nothing in common with fishes beyond 

 their watery home and a somewhat superficial resem- 

 blance. If, however, the two are closely compared, the 

 differences are immediately evident. The tail of a fish, 

 for instance, is set vertical. The only fish I ever saw 

 with the tail horizontal (as in whales and porpoises) 

 was a shark in the museum kept at Yildiz Kiosk by 

 Abdul Hamid when Sultan of Turkey. Then, again, 

 these whales and porpoises have a blowhole on the head, 

 not found in fishes, and it is through this that the great 

 whales send up that cloud of condensing vapour which, 

 mistaking it for a column of water, folk at sea describe 

 as spouting. 



It must at one time or another have occurred to 

 most sea-anglers that, if these could only be induced 

 to take a bait, the smaller porpoises (of, say, 50 Ib. 

 or thereabouts) would give exciting sport on tarpon 

 tackle. No doubt they would. The difficulty is to 

 persuade them to oblige. During the last twenty years 

 I must have received scores of inquiries on the subject, 

 but I never yet succeeded in solving the problem to 

 my own, or anyone's, satisfaction. He who does so 

 will confer a boon, though not on the porpoises. 



