35 
THE NEW YORK AQUARIUM JOURNAL. 
- • —-r !■ u_l___ ^^ 
FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT FISH, 
FOR OUR YOUNG FOLKS. 
TOLD BY UNCLE OCTOPUS. 
Well, my young friends, the time has come 
for your Uncle Octopus to tell who has received 
the prizes for the best compositions on whales. 
First of all he would say that he has received a 
great many answers and all of them are good. 
But you know that all could not have prises, 
-aftd"SG'd'fraSB'w-'no" have'not got them must try 
again when the next is to be given. 
And now your Uncle has a secret to tell you, 
and when it is done perhaps those who have not 
received prizes will not think he is unkind. 
The truth is your Uncle is a bachelor, and so not 
being used to read boys’, and girls’ compositions 
he concluded to let a relative of his, who has a 
boy of bis own, tell which should have the 
prize. This has been done, and the composi¬ 
tions which were judged the best are given in 
the next two columns. ' The first|two, by Miss 
Frances Haeselbarth and Miss Alice Sutro, 
are to be rewarded by Fish Globes, and the other 
three, by Masters Brinton, Townsend and 
Paljier, will receive the Books. 
The Globes will be ready, with a card on them, 
at the Aquarium, to be sent or called for; and 
the Books will be sent by mail. 
I do not mean to say that all of these compo¬ 
sitions are just right, for you will see yourself 
that some of them have some queer mistakes. 
But if every boy and girl in the land knew every¬ 
thing it would be rather hard for the old folks. 
Your Uncle finds that he has not room to tell all 
the reasons why- these were considered the best, 
but will say that the choice was made for many 
reasons, and you must try and be satisfied, and 
those who lost must try again. 
On the page after this you will find a jolly 
piece of poetry which was really intended for 
the children, but which was placed on the old 
folks’ page because there was no room for it in 
the children's column. Perhaps when you are 
reading that you will wonder what kind of a fish 
a Miller's Thumb is. Well, try and find out 
and tell us about it. 
W HALE S. 
Dear Uncle Octofus: 
I read last niglrt in your pretty paper that^ather 
brought home, your offer to all little children -who 
would write you a story about Whales, so I thought I 
would try, and although I have never seen a live 
Whale, yet I will tell all I have read about them. 
Whales are the largest sea monsters there are. We 
cannot call them fish, because they are warm-blooded 
and cannot always live tinder water. They can stay 
underwater half an hour at a time. Whales live in 
the Polar Seas and arc much sought after on account 
of the oil and whalebone obtained from them. The 
oil comes from a fatty substance called blubber, which 
lies under the skin, and the whalebone comes from the 
roof of the mouth of the huge creature. When a 
whale wants his d nner he opens his mouth wide and 
rushes through the water, taking in a great crowd of 
little fish and sea animals, and a great deal of the 
salty ocean. The last he does not want so he sends 
it out in a stream, and holds only the poor litile fishes 
in his mighty jaw. Many ships go out every year 
after Whales, and when it comes to the top of the sea 
and throws forth its column of steam and water they 
see the creature and start immediately in their boats 
to catch it. Sometimes they are successful, but very 
often the Whale is angry and upsets the boats or 
drags them down and drowns the sailors. To kill the 
Whale the men throw a harpoon, to which is fastened 
a long line, into his body, and then let it swim until it 
dies from loss of blood, when they tow it to the ship. 
I have read that Whales show great love to their 
young, and when danger is near they place their chil¬ 
dren under their flippers and carry them down deep 
into the water. Whales are sixty feet long. And 
now, dear Uncle Octopus, I suppose you would like to 
give, me a Whal-ing for sending you stick a foolish 
.fetter, I dare- say I deserve one, but I do' so .want 
one of those globes of fishes. Yours, 
Frances 0. A. Haeselbarth. 
Nyack, Eockland Co., N. Y. 
The Whale is the largest fish in the world. It is 
found in the sea ; it lives in a very cold country ; it 
has a very large mouth and small eyes ; it has also a 
broad, flat tail, wbicb it uses to guide its course as it 
swims through the water ; it has a small hole in its 
head from which it squirts water like a fountain, and 
very high ; the cause of it squirting this water is this : 
when the Whale comes up from the bottom of the sea 
to take breath, the water goes into its mouth and 
tktn it squirts it out of this hole. The whale is a 
v aluable fish. From the whale we get oil, which is 
very useful ; we also get whalebone from which we 
make corsets, umbrellas, &c. Now I will tell how 
they catch the Whale. A number of men go out in a 
boat, and when they see a Whale one of the men 
stands up with a spear in his hand, while the rest of 
them row up to the Whale ; then the man w.th the 
spear in his hand will stick it into the Whale ; then 
they will fasten a rope to the spear and then the other 
men will row to the shore ; but sometimes the Whale 
will swim away aud pull (he boat with him. The 
Whale has such a big mouth that when he cau get a 
chance he will swallow the men. The whale, while 
swimming along, will flap his tail up aud down in the 
water and make a great splash. In win er when the 
men are catching the whale he will pull the boat 
under the ice and then the poor men will be drowned. 
Alice Sutro, Age 10 Years. 
157 East 47th Street. 
There are four kinds of whales. The Sperm or 
Spermaciti Weale, that has the spermaciti in its 
head ; the Bight Whale, that has the oil. It is io 
strong that an ordinary one not over sixty or seventy 
feet long cau pull six or seven boats at one time with 
the harpoons in him. The little White Whale that is 
not over six or eight yards in length, which has the 
valuable skin ; the Eazorback which has on its back 
a kind of "knife with which it fights. Its longest 
length is one hundred and five feet. It is no good. 
The tongue of the largest Whale weighs fifteen hun¬ 
dred pounds. It is nothing but fat. The boats which 
they catch them with are pointed at both ends so that 
they can change their course easily. There is in the 
boat a kind of tub in which a rope is wound with one 
end attached to a harpoon. When the whale comes 
near enough, the man with the harpoon darts it into 
him and as he goes down in the water,.the rope un¬ 
winds, but if it is too short, the whale pulls the boat 
down and they have to cut it off. Sometimes the 
Whale pulls the rope so fast that the friction causes it 
ti take fire and sometimes burns the boat up. After 
they have killed the Whale, particularly the Sperm 
Whale, it often sinks and they have to cut the rope off. 
After they have killed the Whale, they fasten it to the 
side of the ship and cut it up and take out the blubber 
and hoist it on deck and melt it and the oil is madet 
The best oil comes from the Bight Whale. Almos 
all this I learned at the Centennial. 
Philadelphia. George Brinton. 
A Whale has a tremendous head, and the great 
Northern Whale gives a large quantity of oil—usually 
a hundred and twenty tons, and gives a great deal of 
black whalebone. It eats very small things, though 
you would think such a large animal would eat larger 
things. It used to venture in our seas but now it is 
so timid that it goes away up Nor b, and they are 
daily getting fewer. Mollusks attach themselves to 
the skin of the Whale, and brood there as if it was 
a rock. The Whale could upset ships with a single 
blow of his tail. The great Northern Wha.?sc^;uaily 
grows to seventy feet. A fleet of vessels go oiu at 
once with harpoons and harpoon the Whale. My 
grandma, who is nearly eighty years old, told me this 
story : A Whale was found dead in New York Harbor, 
aud some fishermen rowed out and towed him to the 
shore. They put a fence around him and charged 
a shilling for a look at him. The people that looked 
at the Whale when they came home had to hang their 
clothes out for the fishy smell stayed in them. You 
can’t see a whale’s teeth ; they are so small that they 
do not cut the gum. Wasn’t Jonah lucky. 
C. W. C. Townsend. 
Plainfield, I. J. 
The whale is the largest animal in the ocean. It is 
not a fish, although many ignorant people suppose it is. 
There are a great many varieties, so many that I have 
not room or lime to describe them all, but I will men¬ 
tion Some of tbeir names. Tbe Balaaua Whales, the 
Sperm and the Dolphins. They mostly live in arctic 
and antarctic regions. They aie hunted for their oil 
aud bones. The common Dolphin is vulgarly called 
tbe “ goose of the sea.” It was the favorite of Apollo 
and is seen on very ancient coins and medals. The 
White whale is a very swift dolphin, of a beautiful 
cream-white color. It lives in the arctic regions, but 
has been seen in the St. Lawrence Eiver as high up as 
Quebec. It lives on flounders and other small fish. 
A white whale was once tamed in Boston so that it 
would eat from its keeper’s hand, and draw a shell¬ 
like boat around an aquarial tank. Last Saturday, 
Nov. lllb, I visited the Aquarium, at 35th Street, 
where I saw the wonderful White Whale. I found I 
had the best view of bim from tbe bridge. He seemed 
to enjoy himself diving and swimmiug about. Hope 
he will not die before I get a chance to see him again. 
I have often wondered what kind of a whale it could 
have been that swallowed Jonah. Probably he was 
one of the largest, which are from sixty to seventy 
feet long. Who can tell? 
F. Herbert Palmer. 
Uncle Octopus. 
105 West 42d Street, N. Y. 
