The Whale.—Its Zoölogy.—The largest known Animal.—Sperm Whale.—Right Whale.—Finback.—Bowhead.
The Whale is the general name of an order of animals inhabiting the ocean, arranged in zoölogy under the name of Cete, or Cetacæ, and belonging to the class Mammalia in the Linnæan system. This animal is named whale from roundness, or from rolling.
"While living in part or wholly in the ocean, it differs in many important respects from the fish tribes, and it is these peculiarities which render it a link between the creature of the land and of the sea. While it has the power of locomotion in the water, like other fishes, yet in other particulars it has no affinity with them; it is as much a mammal as the ox, or the elephant, or the horse—having warm blood, breathing air, bringing forth living young, and suckling them with true milk."
The whale is the largest of all known animals. Some remarks upon the whale and its varieties will form the subject of the present chapter.
1. The Sperm Whale. The Cachalot, or Physeter Macrocephalus. The principal species are the black-headed, with a dorsal fin, and the round-headed, without a fin on the back, and with fistula in the snout. This whale is known at a distance by the peculiarity of his "spoutings" or "blows." He can be easily detected by whalemen, if he happens to be in company with other species of whales. He blows the water or vapor from his nostrils in a single column, to the height, perhaps, of twelve feet, inclining in a forward direction in an angle of forty-five degrees with the horizon, and visible for several miles. There is also a wonderful regularity as to time in which he "blows"—perhaps once in ten minutes. He remains on the surface of the water from forty-five to sixty minutes, and under water about the same time. Unless the whale is frightened, whalemen make quite correct calculation as to the chances of overtaking him, or meeting him, or when he will rise to the surface after he has "turned flukes."
When the sperm whale is near, he can be easily distinguished by the form of his head, unlike any other variety of whale. Its head is enormous in bulk, being fully more than one third of the whole length of its body; and it ends like an abrupt and steep promontory, and is so hard for several feet from its front that it is quite difficult, if not impossible, for an iron to enter it—as impervious, indeed, to a harpoon as a bale of cotton.
Besides, the sperm whale has a hump on his back, which distinguishes him from others. This hump is farther forward than the fin on the finback whale.
Sperm whales have been captured from seventy to ninety feet in length, and from thirty to forty-five feet in circumference round the largest part of their bodies. It is supposed by whalemen, from their appearance, that they live, or some of them at least, to a great age. One writer on this subject thought that the sperm whale would attain the age of many hundred years, and even to a thousand years. This, however, is mere conjecture, because there are no dates or facts upon which to found a correct opinion.
Some whales have been taken having their teeth worn off level with the gums; and then, again, in other instances, part of their teeth have been broken off, or torn out by some violent effort.
The whole number of teeth in a sperm whale is about forty-two; they are wholly in the lower jaw, which alone is movable, with the exception of a natural movement of the entire head of the fish.