74 The Ottawa Naturalist. 



rain or spray, and the colder the weather the more marked 

 and visible is this phenomenon. When a large whale raises its 

 snout suiificiently far out of the water the column is thrown up 

 precisely like a jet of steam forcibly escaping from a boiler. 

 This jet may be ten or twelve feet high in the case of an Arctic 

 whale or a huge Finner ; but in the porpoise, one of the smallest 

 of the whales, the jet is an insignificant puff only six or eight 

 inches in height. Sometimes the creature breathes before the 

 blow-hole is clear of the waves and a low fountain like a boiling 

 jet is then formed, but if the blow-hole is level with the surface 

 of the sea a small quantity of water is carried up with the rushing 

 column of hot vapour. The cloud of ejected vapour, in very 

 still weather, hangs for a considerable time and moves slowly 

 over the water until it dissipates and fades away. Its appear- 

 ance when seen from the level of the sea, as the late Professor 

 H. N. Moseley recorded, " is very different from that which it 

 has when seen from the deck of a ship ; it appears so much 

 higher and shoots up into the air like a fountain discharged from 

 a very fine rose." "Whereas the great Arctic whale (or Right 

 whale) possesses two blow-holes side by side, and throws up two 

 lofty jets of vapour, the Beluga or white porpoise, and the small 

 porpoise or sea-pig, exhibits a single crescent-shaped aperture, 

 and like the huge sperm-whale ejects a single puff or column ; 

 but in the last-named whale the spout curves over in front of 

 the head, and forms an arch of white vapour. Two blow-holes 

 occur in the Hump-backs, but in the Beaked Whales {Hyperoodoii) 

 which are allied to the toothed sperm-whale, there is a single 

 cruciform aperture. 



Great force being required to expand the spacious chest of 

 these huge monsters, the muscles used in the breathing 

 operation are very powerful and this is especially true of the 

 muscular diaphragm. The elasticity of the lungs, due to the 

 enormous development of " yellow fibres, " and the pressure on 



