THE LIVING WORLD. 
114 
travel in schools, to gambol with the stimulus of emulation, and they display the 
greatest devotion alike towards their mates and towards their young. The 
herbivorous whales are gentle out of proportion to their size, but they can, in 
defence of their young, or when irritated by harpooning, display the most 
reckless and the most invincible courage. A trustworthy account is given of 
a whale which, having been wounded by coming into collision with a ship, 
deliberately attacked it again and again, until finally the ship was sunk and 
the crew compelled to take to their boats. It quite frequently happens in 
the whale fishery that boats will be destroyed and the seamen compelled to 
swim for their lives. Only an experienced and cautious fisherman can be 
trusted with the harpooning of a 
whale, for as it uniformly rushes off 
when struck, the fouling of the har¬ 
poon cable would mean utter destruc¬ 
tion to the boat’s crew. Men natu¬ 
rally like adventure, and readily adjust 
themselves to new exigencies. Hence, 
after one has learned the business 
there must be much that is exhilarat¬ 
ing in being towed along at lightning 
speed by this leviathan of the deep, 
who, however noble his struggle, will 
finally discover that his immense 
skill and tireless persistence of his 
weaker captors. After a whale is powerless it is towed to the side of the 
vessel and there cut up, the waste portions being left to the desiccating 
influence of the sea. Though whales have diminished in number, the march 
of progress has enabled the whalers to improve upon the antique method of 
ARCTIC EIN-WHAEE. 
harpooning by hand. They now carry a Gatling harpoon, which fires into 
the body of the whale not only a series of hooks or flukes, but a torpedo, which 
explodes with fatal effect. 
The Whalebone Whales have, like Richard the Third, teeth when they are 
born, but before completing their foetal existence replace them by plates of whalebone. 
Whalebone is not really bone at all, but simply horny plates serving to retain 
small animals until the whale is ready to swallow them, or so that he shall not 
choke himself by swallowing what is not suitable for food. 
SOUNDING- 
strength is no equivalent for the wary 
