THE OTTAWA NATURALIST. 



Vol. X. OTTAWA, JULY, 1896. No. 4. 



HOW WHALES BREATHE. 



By Professor Edward E. Prince, 

 Dominion Commissioner of Fisheiie?, Ottawa. 



No sight is more common, on a sea-voyage, than the spectacle 

 of a whale " blowing." Many people imagine that the creature 

 spouts forth a column of water, and most artists so depict it, 

 forgetful of the fact that the blow-hole or spiracle, being really 

 the nostril, is used for respiration, and that all cetaceans or 

 whales are air-breathing creatures. It is true that fishes, which 

 are cold-blooded, inhale water, for they breathe by means of 

 gills ; but whales have warm blood and have no gills, and 

 indeed, are not fishes at all. Like ourselves they have a pair of 

 lungs, and are compelled to rise to the surface of the water in 

 order to breathe. If detained under water too long they are 

 drowned like any other air-breathing animal. Some of the 

 largest species remain submerged for thirty or forty minutes and 

 on rising to the surface spout eight or nine times and then 

 descend again. The sperm-whale spouts sixty or seventy times 

 at brief intervals of three to ten seconds and then dives below. 

 Whale hunters say that, when hunted, a whale will remain below 

 for an hour. The white column thrown up at each "spout" 

 of the whale, is really the hot damp breath mingled with a little 

 mucus and water. In the cold atmospheric stratum just above 

 the waves the breath is condensed and falls like a shower of fine 



