634 THE SPOUTING AND MOVEMENTS OF WHALES. 



couical projection, which does not present the least depression in which 

 water could accumulate. 



Other authors have attributed the origin of the little drops of water 

 to that which penetrates into the tube of the blowhole. I do not see 

 any impossiljilit}'^ in this in principle, but would simply remark that 

 the seals and penguins that I have observed close at hand never exhib- 

 ited this phenomenon. I do not see why the nostrils of the cetaceans 

 should be less well organized than the nostrils of these animals. I 

 hardly need say that this last explanation is merely an hj^pothesis which 

 is not based on direct observation. 



The belief of earlier authors that the whales spout water is certainly- 

 based on defective observations and on the blind credence which was 

 accorded to all the stories of Aristotle and Pliny. It seems to me 

 that it is not the same as regards modern authors. 1 believe that 

 with a part of these at least the influence of an a priori idea has been 

 determinative. To explain the visibility of the spout of the large 

 whales in the polar regions is an eas}^ matter. It is only necessary to 

 show that it i^ common to all the mammals which are found in those 

 regions and that the phenomenon is observed in winter even in tem- 

 perate regions. The condensation of water vapor contained in a state 

 of saturation in the waiiii expired air produces a "cloud" (buee) 

 upon contact with the cold air. It is then natural to associate the 

 spout of a whale with a normal "cloud," only that it is larger, on 

 account of the size of the animal. 



This explanation will not sufiice, however, in the case of cetaceans 

 whose spout is visible even in high temperatures. It is well known 

 that the sperm whale is found in the tropical seas, where the tempera- 

 ture of the air is often 30° C, and yet the spout of these animals, 

 although less considerable than that of the large polar whales, is, 

 nevertheless, perfectly visible. It is this difiiculty of explaining the 

 visibility of the spout of the large whales in high atmospheric tem- 

 peratures which has led some authors to affirm that the spout is liquid. 



There is also another difficult}" which presents itself when one 

 attempts to go to the root of the matter. It may l^e asked why the 

 spout is not visible among the smaller whales if it is a simple "cloud" 

 (buee). 



Rawitz (1900) seeks the explanation of the visibilit}^ of the spout in 

 tropical regions in the high temperature which the cetaceans are said 

 to possess. He says on page 94: " The temperature of the blood of the 

 large whalebone whales — I believe Kiikenthal or Guldberg has made 

 the ol)servation — surpasses the highest fever temperature of man." 

 But this reference is altogether erroneous. It was Guldberg (1900) 

 who published the work to which Rawitz referred, and from this 

 memoir it appears very evident that the temperature of the cetaceans 



