, and I only know that you are the
biggest fish there is," replied Freddy.

The bone creaked and shook, as if it was laughing, and said in a tone
that showed it hadn't got over its pride yet:

"You're wrong there, my dear; we are not fishes at all, though stupid
mortals have called us so for a long time. We can't live without air; we
have warm, red blood; and we don't lay eggs,--so we are _not_ fishes. We
certainly _are_ the biggest creatures in the sea and out of it. Why,
bless you! some of us are nearly a hundred feet long; our tails alone
are fifteen or twenty feet wide; the biggest of us weigh five hundred
thousand pounds, and have in them the fat, bone, and muscle of a
thousand cattle. The lower jaw of one of my family made an arch large
enough for a man on horseback to ride under easily, and my cousins of
the sperm-family usually yield eighty barrels of oil."

"Gracious me, what monsters you are!" cried Freddy, taking a long
breath, while his eyes got bigger and bigger as he listened.

"Ah! you may well say so; we are a very wonderful and interesting
family. All our branches are famous in one way or another. Fin-backs,
sperms, and rights are the largest; then come the norwhals, the
dolphins, and porpoises,--which last, I dare say, you've seen."

"Yes: but tell me about the big ones, please. Which were you?" cried
Freddy.

"I was a Right whale, from Greenland. The Sperms live in warm places;
but to us the torrid zone is like a sea of fire, and we don't pass it.
Our cousins do; and go to the East Indies by way of the North Pole,
which is more than your famous Parrys and Franklins could do."

"I don't know about that; but I'd like to hear what you eat, and how you
live, and why you came here," said Freddy, who thought the whale rather
inclined to boast.

"Well, we haven't got any teeth,--our branch of the family; and we live
on creatures so small, that you could only see them with a microscope.
Yes, you may stare; but it's true, my dear. The roofs of our mouths are
made of whalebone, in broad pieces from six to eight feet long, arranged
one against the other; so they make an immense sieve. The tongue, which
makes about five barrels of oil, lies below, like a cushion of white
satin. When we want to feed, we rush through the water, which is full of
the little things we eat, and catch them in our sieve, spurting the
water through two holes in our heads. Then we collect the food with our
tongue, and swallow it;