OEDEE OF CETACEA. 
87 
into the Arctic regions, informed me that he had known a Whale 
toss a boat nearly three feet into the air, and itself rise so high 
out of the water that you could see beneath it, hut that, if 
Scoresby’s figure was correct, the Whale must have tossed the 
boat very many feet into the air — a feat which he did not 
think w~as within the hounds of, if not possibility, yet of proba- 
bility.”* 
With respect to the Whale “ spouting,” as it is commonly 
styled, Mr. Brown remarks, that “ most of the slimy-looking 
substances found floating in the Arctic seas are generally masses 
of Diatomacce combined with Protozoa, &c. ; but in some cases it is 
the mucous lining of the bronchial passages which has been dis- 
charged when the animal was ‘blowing/ This ‘blowing/ so 
familiar a feature in the Cetaceans, but especially of the Bight 
Whales, is quite analogous to the breathing of the higher mam- 
mals, and the ‘blow-holes’ are the perfect analogues of the 
nostrils. It is most erroneously stated that the Whale ejects water 
from the ‘ blow-holes/ I have been many times only a few feet 
from the Whale when ‘blowing/ and, though purposely observing 
it, could never see that it ejected from its nostrils anything but 
the ordinary breath, a fact which might have almost been deduced 
from analogy. In the cold Arctic air this breath is generally 
condensed, and falls upon those close at hand in the form of a 
dense spray, which may have led seamen to suppose that this 
vapour was originally ejected in the form of water. Occasionally 
when the Whale blows just as it is rising out of, or sinking in, 
the sea, a little of the superincumbent water may be ejected 
upwards by the column of breath. When the Whale is wounded 
in the lungs, or in any of the blood-vessels immediately supplying 
them, blood, as might be expected, is ejected in the death-throes 
along with the breath. When the whaler sees his prey ‘ spouting 
red/ he concludes that its end is not far distant ; for it is then 
mortally wounded.” 
“ After Man, the chief enemy of the Whale is Orca gladiator, the 
most savage of all the Cetaceans, and the only one which feeds 
upon other animals belonging to the order. The Thresher Sharkf 
* In the South Atlantic Ocean, near the island of Tristan d’Acuna, the evening 
previous to a gale of wind, we have seen several large Whales repeatedly jump clear 
of the water. — Ed. 
f Specimens of which are to he found in Mr. Buckland’s Museum at South 
Kensington. 
