ay that
"science will not hear of a whale with a gullet capable of admitting
anything larger than a man's fist"--a piece of crass ignorance, which is
also perpetrated in the appendix to a very widely-distributed edition of
the Authorized Version of the Bible. This opinion, strangely enough, is
almost universally held, although I trust that the admirable models now
being shown in our splendid Natural History Museum at South Kensington
will do much to remove it. Not so many people, perhaps, believe that a
whale is a fish, instead of a mammal, but few indeed are the individuals
who do not still think that a cetacean possesses a sort of natural
fountain on the top of its head, whence, for some recondite reason, it
ejects at regular intervals streams of water into the air.

But a whale can no more force water through its spiracle or blow-hole
than you or I through our nostrils. It inhales, when at the surface,
atmospheric air, and exhales breath like ours, which, coming warm into a
cooler medium, becomes visible, as does our breath on a frosty morning.

Now, the MYSTICETUS carries his nostrils on the summit of his head, or
crown, the orifice being closed by a beautifully arranged valve when the
animal is beneath the water. Consequently, upon coming to the surface
to breathe, he sends up a jet of visible breath into the air some ten
or twelve feet. The cachalot, on the other hand, has the orifice at the
point of his square snout, the internal channel running in a slightly
diagonal direction downwards, and back through the skull to the lungs.
So when he spouts, the breath is projected forward diagonally, and, from
some peculiarity which I do not pretend to explain, expends itself in a
short, bushy tuft of vapour, very distinct from the tall vertical spout
of the bowhead or right whale.

There was little or no wind when we sighted the individual I am now
speaking of, so we did not attempt to set sail, but pulled straight
for him "head and head." Strange as it may appear, the MYSTICETUS'
best point of view is right behind, or "in his wake," as we say; it is
therefore part of the code to approach him from right ahead, in which
direction he cannot see at all. Some time before we reached him he
became aware of our presence, showing by his uneasy actions that he had
his doubts about his personal security. But before he had made up his
mind what to do we were upon him, with our harpoons buried in his back.
The difference in his beh