June 4, 1896J 



NA TURE 



succeed in obtaining such a large supply of active fish is 

 incomprehensible to me, except upon the supposition that 

 in waters like these, where fish abound in such incredible 

 numbers, the cachalot cruises gently about with the great 

 lower mandible hanging down (its normal position). The 

 fish, mistaking the great livid cavernous throat for a cave of 

 another kind, enter therein, to find egress impossible. 

 But this is only a pious opinion of mine, unsupported by 

 evidence other than the presence of fish where none could 

 reasonably expect to find them, except under some such 

 circumstances as I have supposed. 



On another occasion we were cruising between 

 Tongatabu (P'riendly Islands) and Futuna, or Horn 

 Island. Just before sunset a solitary sperm whale of 

 goodly size was harpooned by us, and immediately 

 sounded to a depth of 500 fathoms. He remained below 

 the surface for about forty minutes, so that when he broke 

 water again it was nearly dark. ( )f the terrors of that 

 night I might say much, but this is not the place, neither 

 do I think if it were that I could do anything like justice 

 to the subject. Sufficient then to say that his agility and 

 vitality were unequalled by that of any whale that I have 

 met with, and it was well into the small hours of the 

 morning befoi'e he gave up the contest. When day dawned 

 we found that his lower jaw was twisted at right angles 

 to his body, the result probably of some terrific conflict 

 in the long ago. The outstanding portion of the jaw 

 was almost covered with limpets of massive appearance, 

 some measuring six inches across the base, and the inter- 

 vening spaces were filled in with fringing barnacles of 

 great length, giving him the semblance of a hoary beard. 

 This alone was sufficient to endou- a creature of such 

 normal ugliness with an uncanny prehistoric sort of look — 

 and there were not wanting members of our crew to 

 exclaim that this was surely Ua\ y Jones himself But 

 the chief peculiarity about this cachalot, and, indeed, the 

 reason why I mention him here at all, was the extreme 

 hardness and dryness of his blubber. Under ordinary 

 conditions a whale of his size should have yielded at least 

 seventy barrels of oil, but owing, 1 suppose, to the diffi- 

 culty he must have had to procure food, it was only with 

 an extraordinary expenditure of labour that we succeeded 

 in e.xtracting from him thirty-two barrels of oil. The opinion 

 of all on board competent to gi\e one was, that being 

 unable to cope with the big squid, owing to the loss of 

 his great weapon, the lower jaw, he had been driven to 

 seek support on such food as he could obtain, and only 

 managed to exist in a state of semi-starvation. Doubt- 

 less this accounted for his agility, and his fine drawn body, 

 more like that of one of the iJalsnoptera than of a 

 cachalot, went far to confirm the idea. 



.•\nd now I come to the final instance for the present 

 paper, but by no means the least important, at least to 

 my mind, since it has settled se\ cral vexed questions for 

 me finally. We were cruising in the Strait of Malacca, 

 between the Nicobars and the .Malay Peninsula, and had 

 succeeded in killing a full-sized sperm whale. He had 

 been a tough customer, needing all our energies to cope 

 with him ; but a well-directed bomb closed the negotia- 

 tions just before sunset. As usual, he had ejected the 

 contents of his stomach before d\ing, and we specially 

 noticed the immense size of some of the masses floating 

 about. By common consent they were about as large as 

 our hatch-house, « hich measured 6 ft. x 6 ft. x 8 ft. I 

 must very distinctly state that these masses were not 

 square, but irregularly-shaped masses, bitten or torn off 

 in blocks from the body of some gigantic squid. 



The whale was secured alongside, and all hands sent 

 below for a good rest prior to commencing to " cut in " at 

 daybreak. I had the watch from eight bells to midnight, 

 and at about 1 1 p.m. was leaning over the lee rail, idly 

 gazing seawards, where the rising moon was making a 

 broad lane of silvery light upon the smooth, dark waters. 

 Presentlv there was a commotion in the sea, right in the 



NO. 1388, VOL. 54J 



way of the moon, and I immediately went for the night 

 glasses to ascertain if possible the nature of it. In that 

 neighbourhood there are several active \ olcanoes, and at 

 first I judged the present disturbance to be one of these, 

 sending up debris from the sea bed. A very short 

 examination satisfied me that the trouble, whatever it 

 might be, was not of \olcanic or seismic origin. I called 

 the captain, as in duty bound, but he was indisposed to 

 turn out for anything short of actual danger, so the watch 

 and I had the sight to ourselves. We edged away a little 

 under the light draught of wind, so as to draw nearer to 

 the scene, and presently were able to realise its full signi- 

 ficance. .A very larg^e sperm whale was engaged in deadly 

 conflict with a monstrous squid, whose far-reaching 

 tentacles enveloped the whale's whole body. 



The livid whiteness of those writhing arms, which 

 enlaced the cachalot like a nest of mighty serpents, stood 

 out in bold relief against the black boulder-like head of 

 the aggressor. Presently the whale raised itself half out 

 of water, and we plainly saw the awful-looking head of 

 the gigantic mollusc. At our distance, something under 

 a mile, it appeared about the size of one of our largest 

 oil casks, which held 336 gallons. Like the rest of the 

 calmar visible, it was of a peculiar dead-white, and in it 

 gleamed two eyes of inky-blackness, about a foot in 

 diameter. To describe the wonderful contortions of those 

 two monsters, locked in a deadly embrace, is far beyond 

 my powers, but it was a ne\er-to-be-forgotten sight. The 

 utter absence of all sound, for we were not near enough 

 to hear the turmoil of the troubled sea, was not the least 

 remarkable feature of this titanic encounter. All around 

 the combatants, too, were either smaller whales or 

 immense sharks, who were evidently assisting in the 

 destruction of the great squid, and getting a full share of 

 the feast. As we looked spell-bound we saw the writh- 

 ings gradually cease, and the encircling tentacles 

 gradually slip off the whale's body, which seemed to float 

 unusually high. At last all was over, and the whole 

 commotion had completely subsided, leaving no trace 

 behind but an intensely strong odour as of a rocky coast 

 at low tide in the full blaze of the sun. Since that night 

 I have never had a doubt either as to the origin of all 

 sea-serpent stories or the authenticity of the old Norse 

 legends of the Kraken ; for who could blame a seaman 

 witnessing such a sight, and all unaccustomed to the 

 close observation of whales, for reporting some fearsome 

 monster with horrent mane and floating " many a rood.'' 

 An interesting account of the French gunboat Alecio 

 falling in with a calmar forty feet in length, lying on the 

 surface in the North Atlantic, once fell into my hands. 

 It told how those on board succeeded in getting a hawser 

 passed round the creature, but in heaving it tight the rope 

 cut its way through the soft gelatinous body, which floated 

 away in halves, and gradually sank. I much regret now 

 that I do not remember anything of the name or date of 

 the publication in which this account appeared. In pre- 

 vious communications of my own to the press on the 

 subject of sperm whales and their capture, I have inci- 

 dentally alluded to these immense molluscs — vide Land 

 and Water, September 29, 1894 ; ChandH-rs's, March 24, 

 1894; Pall Mall Gazette, September 7, 1895 ; Sheffield 

 Weekly Telegraph, No\ ember 2, 1895 ; Good Words, 

 September 1895 — a few of the most recent ones. 



In closing these brief notes, owing to exigencies of 

 space, I would like to add that the only place for accurate 

 observations of these animals is at a bay-whaling station, 

 such as the Prince of Monaco visited at Terceira. If he, 

 with the appliances at his command, adheres to his 

 resolve to pursue this great study, we shall soon be in 

 possession of some splendid data. And he, or others on 

 a similar errand, would find the best opportunities in the 

 southern hemisphere, where the number of sperm whales 

 are simply amazing around certain easily accessible spots. 

 Frank T. Bullen. 



