Sperms are found through wide ranges of the ocean, in most tropical waters, as far north and as far south as 60° in each direction from the equator.
But whereas Right Whales of colder seas prefer to hunt in couples only, Sperm Whales crowd together in large companies. Sometimes, it is true, lonely specimens are found. They, however, are usually morose and ill-conditioned brutes, ready to fight even men. It has been suggested that perhaps they are thus solitary because of their morose temperament, which has made it impossible for their fellows to put up with their presence.
Both these huge whales have powerful fluked tails and small flippers. It is curious that inside the flippers are separate branching bones, not unlike the bones of a human hand, only covered with thick skin in one piece, like a fingerless glove.
This rather seems to indicate that the flippers may be of the nature of hands in embryo.
The Sperm does not come to the surface for air nearly so often as his Greenland cousin. Regularly once in each hour and ten minutes is the plan he follows; and then he remains for several minutes at the surface, going through a series of sixty or seventy mighty puffings and blowings. After which he vanishes for another hour and ten minutes.
Some pathetic tales have been told of the devotion of a mother-whale to her infant—she usually has but one at a time.
Early in the present century a harpooner deliberately sent his harpoon into an infant-whale, hoping thus to take the mother. And he had not miscalculated the strength of maternal love.
No thought had that poor mother of saving herself by flight. She came fearlessly close to the boat, seized her wounded little one, and dragged it away with extraordinary rapidity, using up six hundred feet of line.
Then she rose again, dashing to and fro in such evident “extreme agony” that one can only marvel at the men who were able to watch it unmoved. Two harpoons were flung at her, and failed to strike. A third succeeded; but still, absorbed in her little one’s peril, she paid no heed to her own injury, made no effort to get away, and “in the course of an hour” she was killed.
That was in 1811. The same deed has been lately described by Mr. Bullen—the slaying of a mother-whale, which, with her infant by her side, refused to use her great strength in self-defence, lest she might hurt that little one. Such love as this should surely be respected, even by rough fishermen.