THE SPOUTING AND MOVEMENTS OF WHALES. 633 



This phenomenon is not peculiar to wliales; it is presented b}" all ani- 

 mals whose lungs are torn or for any reason filled with blood. 



Many conscientious observers, however, think they have proved 

 that the spout sometimes falls in drops of water. Baer (1864) sa3's 

 that Captain Kotzebue has seen a whale spout so near the ship that 

 the spout spread out over the deck, which was covered with little 

 drops, but these drops were never sufficiently numerous for the water 

 to collect in a stream. Thiercelin (1866, t. 1) relates that from the 

 spout of the rig-ht whale there fall some small drops of "oily matter" 

 and a certain quantity of water. Lilljeborg (1866) cites Haglund, 

 who has seen drops of water fall from the lower part of the cloud 

 formed by the spout, and Torrell, who declares that a little water fell 

 from a spout onto the deck of the ship, the water probably produced, 

 he adds, b}^ condensation of the vapor. 



All these observations, and others which I have not cited, have been 

 made in the polar regions, where the temperature of the air is ver}'^ 

 low. They could therefore be explained easily by the vevy rapid 

 condensation of the water contained in the spout. 



Many other explanatory hypotheses have been put forward. It is 

 claimed that the animal having blown before the protuberance of the 

 blowhole is completel}^ emerged, the spout draws with it a part of the 

 surface water and vaporizes it. Baer (1864) does not admit this view. 

 He observes, very justly, that whales do not spout until the blowhole 

 is out of the water. On the other hand, the results of an experiment 

 which he made appeared to him conclusive. He blew under water 

 with a curved tube and proved that the water was not carried up 

 except when the orifice of the tube was very close to the surface. 



It seems to me that the experiment of Baer demonstrates just the 

 opposite of what he claims. He has, indeed, demonstrated experi- 

 mentally that water can be drawn up under certain conditions, and one 

 can hardly suppose that these conditions are never realized; on the 

 contrary, it is very probable that they may be sometimes realized, 

 Baer himself figures a killer which draws up some little drops of 

 water with the spout. I believe, then, that such occurrences are 

 possible. 



But man}" authors, and Baer among others, have proposed a differ- 

 ent explanation. They also believe that the small drops of water 

 which fall from the spout are from water drawn up, but derived from 

 that which accumulates in tli(> depression of the blowhole. Rawitz 

 (1900) combats this view at length Avith arguments based on the 

 obliquity of the orifice of the blowhole, which is in the form of a slit, 

 and on the inclination of the protul)erance of the blowhole. I am of 

 the opinion of Rawitz, but for a reason which seems to me better than 

 his, because it is unanswerable. We have seen above that the blow- 

 hole of the whalebone whales is drawn out during the spout into a 



