ead is from us; and when he goes down he will go right away.

Oh, he is turning head over heels! There is his back fin again. And--Ah!
was that not a slap! How the water boiled and foamed; and what a tail he
had! And how the mackerel flew out of the water!

Yes. You are a lucky boy to have seen that. I have not seen one of
those gentlemen show his "flukes," as they call them, since I was a boy
on the Cornish coast.

Where is he gone?

Hunting mackerel, away out at sea. But did you notice something odd
about his tail, as you call it--though it is really none?

It looked as if it was set on flat, and not upright, like a fish's. But
why is it not a tail?

Just because it is set on flat, not upright: and learned men will tell
you that those two flukes are the "rudiments"--that is, either the
beginning, or more likely the last remains--of two hind feet. But that
belongs to the second volume of Madam How's Book of Kind; and you have
not yet learned any of the first volume, you know, except about a few
butterflies. Look here! Here are more whales coming. Don't be
frightened. They are only little ones, mackerel-hunting, like the big
one.

What pretty smooth things, turning head over heels, and saying, "Hush,
Hush!"

They don't really turn clean over; and that "Hush" is their way of
breathing.

Are they the young ones of that great monster?

No; they are porpoises. That big one is, I believe, a bottle-nose. But
if you want to know about the kinds of whales, you must ask Dr. Flower at
the Royal College of Surgeons, and not me: and he will tell you wonderful
things about them.--How some of them have mouths full of strong teeth,
like these porpoises; and others, like the great sperm whale in the South
Sea, have huge teeth in their lower jaws, and in the upper only holes
into which those teeth fit; others like the bottle-nose, only two teeth
or so in the lower jaw; and others, like the narwhal, two straight tusks
in the upper jaw, only one of which grows, and is what you call a
narwhal's horn.

Oh yes. I know of a walking-stick made of one.

And strangest of all, how the right-whales have a few little teeth when
they are born, which never come through the gums; but, instead, they grow
all along their gums, an enormous curtain of clotted hair, which serves
as a net to keep in the tiny sea-animals on which they feed, and let the
water strain out.

You mean whalebone? Is whalebone hair?

So it seems.