54 
MAMMALIA. 
in -proportion as the air is driven out of the bronchial tubes and 
is replaced by water. 
We have just described the process, which we call classical, em- 
ployed in capturing the Whale. This process is insufficient now, 
because the Whales have become timid, and knowing their danger, 
flee before their pursuers, at the moment when the latter flatter 
themselves that they are about to catch them. A French gun-maker, 
M. Devisme, invented for whaling an explosive projectile. The 
balle fouclroyante or a percussion of ■ M. Devisme has two little 
wings, which, opening at the moment of the explosion in the body 
of the animal, form a sort of harpoon. The balle fouclroyante pro- 
posed by M. Devisme for hunting dangerous animals, which should 
be killed at the first shot, such as Lions, Tigers, or Elephants, and 
which he considers equally suited for attacking great spouting 
Whales, is nothing but a kind of howitzer shell, reduced to 
dimensions small - enough to allow of its -being fired from an 
ordinary rifled carbine. This ball contains a certain quantity of 
powder, which can be ignited by the percussion- of a fulminating 
capsule contained in its interior. 
This balle foudroyante (Fig. 15) is cylindrical, and eight centi- 
metres in length ; it is formed of a copper tube, covered at its 
base with a coating of lead for about the length of two centi- 
metres. This plate of lead forces itself,’ at the moment the gun is 
fired, into the grooves of the barrel of the carbine, the calibre of 
which is the same - as that of the Wncennes carbine. The upper 
part of this ball is a copper cone, screwing on to the tube. This 
cone is armed -with a piston, *, at the lower extremity of which is 
placed an ordinary cap, which rests upon a steel cross-piece. When 
the projectile has hit the object shot at, this steel cross-piece 
crushes the fulminating capsule, and the six grains of powder 
contained in the ball ignite and send the whole projectile flying 
about in death-bearing splinters. 
Of ail the means tried until now to strike and kill the Whale from 
a distance, the only one which has, as yet at least, been actually 
employed is -an American projectile, which has received the name 
of bomb-lance. This engine (Fig. 16) is composed of a cast-iron 
tube, of from thirty to forty centimetres in length by two to three 
in diameter. This tube is filled with about a hundred grains of 
gunpowder. It terminates above in a triangular pyramid, with 
