Outof//,e 



oz- While he was nosing after two or three her- 

 ring I motioned Noel to be quiet, and slipping 

 an oar over the stern began to scull gently 

 towards, him. Hardly had the bow of my 

 dory cleared the line of punts when he sank 

 from sight; and when he came up again he 

 was far away and heading straight out to sea. 

 Farther up the coast, where the Straits 

 began to be ice choked, another curious fact 

 carrie out, namely, that some of these warm- 

 blooded monsters, though they live amid the 

 icebergs, are unwilling to come close to even 

 a small cake of floating ice. The water there 

 is always chilled, and Leviathan avoids it abso- 

 lutely. More than that, though he is gener- 

 ally set down as a stupid creature, he showed 

 some small degree of intelligence in taking 

 care of himself. Here on the West Coast, 

 especially under the influence of strong south- 

 erly winds, the tide will often set for days in 

 the same direction without turning. Levia- 

 than knows this, though many a skipper 

 loses his vessel in the fog because of his 

 ignorance of this steady eastward set of the 

 tide. At such times the loose ice drifts away 



