BREATHING* 
43 
In different individuals, the times consumed in per- 
forming these several acts vary, but in each they are 
minutely regular ; and this well-known regularity is of 
considerable use to the fishers—for when a whaler has 
once noticed the periods of any particular sperm whale, 
which is not alarmed, he knows to a minute when 
to expect it again at the surface, and how long it will 
remain there. 
Immediately after each spout, the nose sinks beneath 
the water, scarcely a second intervening for the act of 
inspiration, which must consequently be performed very 
quickly, the air rushing into the chest with an astonish- 
ing velocity ; there is however no sound caused by the 
inspiration, and very little by the expiration, or spout ; 
in this respect also differing from other whales, for the 
“ finback ” whale, and some others, have their inspira- 
tions accompanied by a loud sound, as of air forcibly 
drawn into a small orifice,— this sound is called by 
whalers, the “ drawback/’ and when heard at night near 
the ship, convinces the listening watch of the species 
to which it belongs. In a large “ bull ” sperm whale, 
the time consumed in making one inspiration and one 
expiration, or the space from the termination of one 
spout to that of another, is ten seconds ; during six of 
of which, the nostril is beneath the surface of the water, 
the inspiration occupying one, and the expiration three 
seconds, and at each breathing time the whale makes 
from sixty to seventy expirations, and remains, there- 
fore, at the surface ten or eleven minutes. At the 
termination of this breathing time, or as whalers say. 
