DROWNING IN A DEAD WHALE'S HEART 375 



somes or other blood-parasites in whales. I suppose that 

 no one has an ill-feeling towards whales. Most of us have 

 never seen a whale, either alive or in the flesh — only a 

 skeleton. I have seen a live whale or two off the coast 

 of Norway ; and I once, in conjunction with my friend 

 Moseley, when we were students at Oxford, cut up one, 

 18 ft. long, which had been exhibited for three weeks 

 during the summer in a tent on the shores of the Bristol 

 Channel, where we purchased it. The skeleton of that 

 whale is now in the museum at Oxford, but happily the 

 smell of it exists only in my memory. The late Mr. 

 Gould, who produced such beautifully illustrated books on 

 birds, told me that he once fell into the heart of a full- 

 sized whale, which he was cutting up. He narrowly 

 escaped drowning in the blood. The whale was not very 

 fresh, and Mr. Gould was unapproachable for a week. 



An immense number of whales are killed every year 

 for their oil, and their highly nutritious flesh is wasted. 

 There was an attempt some years ago to make meat 

 extract from it. Some which was brought to me reminded 

 me of the whale on the shores of the Bristol Channel. I 

 do not know if the extract has proved palatable to other 

 people. The Norwegians are specially expert in killing 

 whales. They have been allowed to set up " factories " 

 on the west coast of Ireland and in the Shetlands, where 

 they kill whales with harpoons fired from guns, cut them 

 up, and boil down the fat. 



Whales are warm-blooded creatures which suckle their 

 young, and have been developed in past geological times 

 from land animals — the primitive carnivors — which were 

 also the ancestors of dogs, bears, seals and cats. Whales 

 have lost the hind limbs altogether and developed the 

 forelegs into fingerless flippers, whilst the tail is provided 

 with " flukes " like the fins of a fish's tail in shape, but 

 horizontal instead of vertical. The whole form is fish- 



