lo Denizens of the Deep 



shall, if not stamped with the same hall-mark of genius 

 as the White Seal, at least endeavour to be as readable in 

 their degree. 



With this object before my eyes, I now essay a series 

 of lives of some Denizens of the Deep based very largely 

 upon personal observation, buttressed by scientific facts 

 and decorated by imagination. I well know how am- 

 bitious the task is, but I feel that I have some small 

 qualifications for the work, and I know too how much 

 room there is for a book of the kind. A minor difficulty 

 confronts me at the outset. In justice the place of 

 honour at the commencement should — I felt, must — be 

 given to the undoubted Monarch of the Deep, the 

 stupendous Whale. But I have written so much, so 

 exhaustively about him (as a ship is " she " to sailors, so 

 a whale is " he " to whalers), that it must be impossible 

 to avoid some repetition (for which I trust I shall be for- 

 given) of what I have published before. And it would 

 naturally appear as if I had deliberately chosen to place 

 the Whales first because of my personal predilection for 

 their gigantic company, and more extended acquaintance 

 with them as regards their every-day life. But that is 

 not so. I would gladly put a much smaller denizen of 

 the deep sea forward first if I might with propriety do so. 

 However, I feel that to be out of the question, so the 

 Whale comes first. 



Again, I beg to observe that this series of life-histories 

 will possess no orderly sequence of species or genera. I 

 intend to keep mammals, fish, and birds, each in a section 

 of their own, but apart from that, I wish to keep the 

 work as unlike an orthodox natural history as it is 

 possible to make it. Of necessity, these will be selected 

 lives, since there are so many species of deep-sea folk of 



