392 
COMMON' WHALE* 
that are given of their extraordinary longevity. 
The cubs continue at the breast of the mother only 
fur a year, during which period they attain to a con- 
siderable size, and are called short-heads by the 
sailors. The mother, at the end of that period; 
is extremely lean and emaciated, while her cub is 
so large and fat, that it frequently yields above 
fifty barrels of blubber. The next year after they 
have left the breast, they are called stunts ; be- 
cause they decrease in their fatness, and yield 
scarcely an half of the produce that is obtained 
from them when suckling. After two years, the 
young whales are called skull fish ; and though 
for awhile they continue of an inferior size, there 
is no mark by which their age can be ascer- 
tained. 
Though the whales are gregarious animals, yet 
every individual propagates only with those of its 
own kind ; and without mixture of breed, they 
transmit an unpolluted race to posterity. When 
they are seen in shoak of different kinds together, 
or making their migrations in large companies, 
from one ocean to another, their object probabl}* 
is security and mutual defence. Hardly any in- 
stinct less powerful than that of self preservation, 
from the attacks of smaller but more powerful fishes, 
could induce them to an union, by which the scar- 
city of food must be so greatly increased. 
Common whale. 
This is the largest animal known, if the kra- 
ken and sea-serpent be supposed fabulous. In the 
north sea, where it is most frequently taken, it 
measures about sixty feet in length ; and there is 
reason to believe that before the fishery had 
committed such vast depredations, there were 
many of this species seen of a far superior size. 
