WHEN WHALES ARE HARPOONED 143 
ness. Small whales of two or three species are killed in 
adjacent waters, towed to the stations, and hauled up on 
ways. Ina single day a whale forty feet long is completely 
worked up, and practically every part of the animal yields 
a commercially valuable product. 
When a whale is struck by a harpoon, it dives deeply to 
escape its foes, and remains under water as long as possible. 
BOW-HEAD WHALE. 
Balaena mysticetus. 
The comfortable period for a whale to remain under water 
is fifteen minutes, but in feeding below the surface, this is 
often extended to twenty-five minutes. Harpooned whales 
sometimes descend 300 feet and lie on the muddy bottom of 
a shallow sea for a period of from fifty minutes to an hour 
and twenty minutes. 
But whalers know that their victim must sooner or later 
come to the surface or drown. As a whale reaches the sur- 
face, it immediately discharges its breath from the blow- 
holes situated on top of its head. A whale does not spout 
water, but the breath which comes from its lungs is so heavily 
laden with moisture that at a little distance it looks like water, 
