Children of the Wild

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

"You see," he continued, "they're not fish, because they cannot breathe under water like fish can, but have to come to the surface for air, just as we would have to. And they're not fish, because they nurse their babies as a cow or a cat does. And—and there are lots of other reasons."

"What are the other reasons?" demanded the Babe eagerly.

But Uncle Andy had felt himself getting into deep water. He adroitly evaded the question.

"Do you suppose this old trout here," said he, pointing to the grassy bundle, "used to love and take care of its little ones, like the whale I'm going to tell you about loved and took care of hers? No indeed! The trout had hundreds of thousands, and liked nothing better than to eat them whenever it got the chance. But the whale had only one—at a time, that is—and she always used to think there was nothing else like it in the world. There are lots of other mothers as foolish as that. Yours, for instance, now."

The Babe laughed. It pleased him when he understood one of Uncle
Andy's jokes—which was not always, by any means. He squatted himself
on the moss before the log, where he could stare straight up into Uncle
Andy's face with his blue, steady, expectant eyes.

"It was a long way off from Silverwater," began Uncle Andy in a far-away voice, and with a far-away look in his eyes, "that the whale calf was born. It was up North, where the summer sun swung low over a world of cold green seas, low grey shores, crumbling white ice-fields, and floating mountains of ice that flashed with lovely, fairy-like tints of palest blue and amethyst. The calf himself, with his slippery greyish-black back and under-parts of a dirty cream color, was not beautiful—though, of course, his mother thought him so, as he lay nursing just under her great fin, rocked gently by the long, slow Arctic swells."

"What's Arctic swells?" interrupted the Babe, wrinkling his forehead more than ever. He had a vision of tall, smart-looking Eskimos, in wonderful furs; and it seemed to him very curious that the old mother whale should be so tame as to let them come close enough to rock her baby for her.

"Rollers, I mean; Big waves!" grunted Uncle Andy discontentedly. "A fellow has to be so extraordinarily literal with you to-day! Now, if you interrupt again, I'll stop, and you can get Bill to tell you all about it. As I was going to say, he—the calf, not Bill—was about eight or nine feet long. He looked all head. And his head looked all mouth. And his mouth—but you could not see into that for it was very busy nursing. His mother, however, lay with her mouth half open, a vast cavern of a mouth, nearly a third the length of her body—and it looked all whalebone. For, you must know, she was of the ancient and honorable family of the Right Whales, who scorn to grow any teeth, and therefore must live on soup so to speak."

Here he paused, and looked at the Babe as much as to say, "Now, I suppose you're going to interrupt again, in spite of all I've said." But the Babe, restraining his curiosity about the soup, only sat staring at him with solemn eyes. So he went on.

"You see, it was a most convenient kind of soup, a live soup, that they fed upon. The sea, in great spots and patches, is full of tiny creatures, sometimes jelly-fish, sometimes little squid of various kinds, all traveling in countless hosts from somewhere-or-other to somewhere else, they know not why. As the great mother whale lay there with her mouth open, these swarming little swimmers would calmly swim into it, never dreaming that it was a mouth. There they would get tangled among those long narrow strips or plates of whale-bone, with their fringed edges. Every little while the whale would lazily close her mouth, thrust forward her enormous fat tongue, and force the water out through this whalebone sieve of hers. It was like draining a dish of string beans through a colander. Having swallowed the mess of jellyfish and squid, she would open her mouth again, and wait for another lot to come in. It was a very easy and comfortable way to get a bite of breakfast, while waiting for her baby to finish nursing. And every little while, from the big blowhole or nostril on top of her head she would 'spout,' or send up a spray-like jet of steamy breath. And every little while, too, the big-headed baby under her flipper would send up a baby spout, as if in imitation of his mother.