36 FISHES I HAVE KNOWN 



waters that roll around the mysterious Antarctic 

 continent. 



We have the sperm or cachalots, the ''right" 

 whales, rorquals, and tinners of several kinds, 

 including blue-blacks. There are the bottle-nose 

 or caing whales of the Orkney and Shetland 

 Islands; black fish; the fierce grampuses or killers, 

 with tall black dorsal fins — tigers of the sea, 

 devouring dolphins, and even porpoises — and the 

 belugas ^ or white whales, natives of Arctic seas, 

 bluish-grey when young, glistening milk-white 

 afterwards, sociable and gentle in disposition, 

 and probably subsisting on plaice, flounders, and 

 salmon. A living specimen was exhibited at the 

 Westminster Aquarium in 1878, and fed principally 

 upon eels. Besides these there are hump-backs, 

 beaked whales, and the pigmy whales of southern 

 seas. 



The chief of the above cetaceans are the sperm, 

 the " right," and the rorqual. Between the sperm 

 and the " right " (best known of all whales) the 

 difference in shape of head and in nature of food, 

 is very remarkable. 



In its enormous blunt head, like the fore part of 



' In the summer of 1904 a beluga about twelve feet long- 

 was seen in Loch Struen for days, spouting half a mile from 

 the shore. 



