192 THE CBUISE OF THE "CACHALOT:' 



whale are almost inTariably taken from the Mysticetus, 

 so that the average individual generally defines a whale 

 as a big fish which spouts water out of the top of his 

 head, and cannot swallow a herring. Indeed, so lately 

 as last year a popular M.P., writing to one of the 

 religious papers, allowed himself to say that " science 

 will not hear of a whale with a gullet capable of admit- 

 ting anything larger than a man's fist " — a piece of crass 

 ignorance, which is also perpetrated in the appendix to a 

 very widely-distributed edition of the Authorized Version 

 of the Bible. This opinion, strangely enough, is almost 

 universally held, although I trust that the admirable 

 models now being shown in our splendid Natural 

 History Museum at South Kensington will do much to 

 remove it. Not so many people, perhaps, believe that 

 a whale is a fish, instead of a mammal, but few indeed 

 are the individuals who do not still think that a cetacean 

 possesses a sort of natural fountain on the top of its 

 head, whence, for some recondite reason, it ejects at 

 regular intervals streams of water into the air. 



But a whale can no more force water through its 

 spiracle or blow-hole than you or I through our nostrils. 

 It inhales, when at the surface, atmospheric air, and ex- 

 hales breath like ours, which, coming warm into a cooler 

 medium, becomes visible, as does our breath on a frosty 

 morning. 



Now, the Mysticetus carries his nostrils on the 

 summit of his head, or crown, the orifice being closed 

 by a beautifully-arranged valve when the animal is 

 beneath the water. Consequently, upon coming to the 

 surface to breathe, he sends up a jet of visible breath 

 into the air some ten or twelve feet. The cachalot, on 

 the other hand, has the orifice at the point of his square 



