278 TEE CRUISE OF THE " CACHALOT:' 



the trio survived, they never afterwards attempted to 

 rush a cachalot. 



Strange to say, the sperm whale does not appear to 

 be a fond mother. At the advent of danger she often 

 deserts her offspring, and in such cases it is hardly 

 conceivable that she ever finds it again. It is true that 

 she is not gifted with such long " arms " as the Balaense, 

 wherewith to cuddle her young one to her capacious 

 bosom while making tracks from her enemies; nor is 

 she much " on the fight," not being so liberally furnished 

 with jaw as the fierce and much larger bull — for this 

 is the only species of whale in which there exists a great 

 disproportion between the sexes in point of size. Such 

 difference as may obtain between the Mysticeta is 

 slightly in favour of the female. I never heard of a 

 cow-cachalot yielding more than fifty barrels of oil ; but 

 I have both heard of, and seen, bulls carrying one 

 hundred and fifty. One individual taken by us down 

 south was seventy feet long, and furnished us with 

 more than the latter amount ; but I shall come to him 

 by-and-by. Just one more point before leaving this 

 (to me) fascinating subject for the present. 



To any one studying the peculiar configuration of a 

 cachalot's mouth, it would appear a difficult problem 

 how the calf could suck. Certainly it puzzled me more 

 than a little. But, when on the " line " grounds we got 

 among a number of cows one calm day, I saw a little 

 fellow about fifteen feet long, apparently only -a few 

 days old, in the very act. The mother lay on one 

 side, with the breast nearly at the water's edge ; while 

 the calf, lying parallel to its parent, with its head in 

 the same direction, held the teat sideways in the 

 angle of its jaw, with its snout protruding from the 

 surface. Although we caught several cow-humpbacke 



