OCEAN FISH AND OCEAN FISHING 33 



However, we do know that whales, the largest 

 objects of animal creation, are not fish ; they have 

 no gills and have to come to the surface of the 

 water to replenish their lungs with pure air, the 

 young of sperm and '' right " whales being from 

 ten to fourteen feet long at birth, and suckled 

 with milk (resembling that of cows to which rich 

 cream had been added) whence butter has actually 

 been made. 



In fact, with the exception of the element 

 wherein, unlike the seal-tribe, they spend all 

 their lives, they have hardly anything in common 

 with true fish. Their huge fins — " gloved-hands" 

 they have been called — lying flat on the water, do 

 not aid their progression, but act as rudders, the 

 propelling power being in the prodigious horizontal 

 tail, twenty-three feet long in large specimens, 

 terminating in what are called flukes, that with 

 up and down strokes can send them along at a 

 speed of over twelve miles an hour. 



Through blow-holes at the top of their heads, 

 the vitiated air from the lungs is expelled. 

 Condensing in the atmosphere, it assumes the 

 appearance of steaming spray; and in some of 

 the species, water taken in through the mouth 

 is blown out also. 



Vastness is characteristic of the whale's economy, 

 3 



