"The tides here rise and fall some twenty feet, and the whales are trapped in an inclosure made of poles, the entrance to which is closed when a school enters. The pound is about a mile square, and is made of slim poles put two feet apart, space enough to let a whale through, but they will not attempt it. The tide falls and leaves them on the mud, quaking with fear. When we want live ones the boxes are made, padded with seaweed, shoved out over the mud, tipped on one side, and the whale rolled into it, where its struggles soon put it on an even keel, and then it gives up and does nothing but breathe as the boxes are taken on board a schooner for Quebec."
I was fortunate in getting the above story from Luke Tilden, for a few weeks afterward he died in the aquarium; and Zach. Coup would tell nothing that could be relied on, not even to the locality where the whales were caught.
The white whale is the only one of its tribe that can be captured in the manner related, because of its cowardly timidity. The harbor porpoise, or "herring-hog," would jump nets and break barricades or die. It would not bear the confinement of an aquarium, for it would leap out of the tanks or dash its brains out in trying to do so; but, once placed in a tank of either salt or fresh water, the white whale starts to circle it, always to the left, with the sun, and contentedly blows at intervals of from five to fifteen minutes, and seems as contented as a canary bird in its cage.
The whale does not always swim in circles to the left when free, and why it does so in confinement is a question. I merely assert the fact. Perhaps wiser men know why perfectly still water in a washbowl will rotate to the left with an accelerated motion when the plug is withdrawn, but I do not. As the motion to the left is invariable there must be a rule for it, but, granting that this motion has some relation to the motion of the earth, the question of how this affects the voluntary movements of an animal remains to be answered. I have watched over a dozen white whales in captivity, dumped into tanks from the most convenient side without regard to the direction of their heads, and every one turned and circled to the left. The question arises, Why do they do this? At the new aquarium now at Battery Park, New York city, the big sturgeon always circles to the left except when feeding.
The two whales at Coney Island were good-sized ones, nearly ten feet long, and they raced around, side by side, and played for nearly two hours before they began to take the eels which had been in the tank several days, although the large mammals had been without food for at least seven days. On the way down I had noticed a difference in the sound of their breathing, that of the female being sharp and clear, while her mate seemed to have a hoarseness, and occasionally gave something like a cough. I called attention to this and told Mr. Coup that the animal had some lung trouble. He consulted a man who professed to know about these animals, and then reported his opinion that the cough was nothing to fear, "merely a little water in the blow-hole."
"This may be true," I replied; "I'm not a medical man, but I've heard many consumptives cough, and that whale imitates them. I doubt if it lives a month."
It lived just twenty-six days after its arrival at Coney Island. The last five days of its life it took no food, and its labored breathing was annoying to all who knew the cause of it. Then came a touching display of affection. The female slackened her pace day by day to accommodate it to that of her constantly weakening companion, and as the end neared she put her broad transverse tail under his and propelled him along. He stopped breathing at 10 A. M., but his mate kept up her efforts, occasionally making a swift run around the tank, as if to say, "Come, follow me," and then slowing up at his side, resumed the work of sculling him along, as before. Rude men expressed pity for the living one, and after my men had rigged a derrick and hoisted her mate from the pool she would rise higher out of water when she came up to blow, remembering that he had gone out over the top of the tank. An autopsy by local physicians, whose names have been forgotten, assisted by a medical student then in my employ, now Dr. J. R. Latham, 126 West Eleventh Street, New York city, disclosed the fact that the whale died of pneumonia.
A white whale which reached the Broadway aquarium about July 1st, after mine came, lived seven months, dying January 28, 1878. My whale was either diseased when captured or took a cold at Isle aux Coudres. The New York one was sound all summer, and I told Mr. Coup that it might live for years, but the artificial heat of the aquarium in winter was not what a subarctic animal could endure, and it succumbed as most of Peary's Eskimos did in New York last winter. The autopsy on this whale was performed by Dr. F. D. Weisse, professor of practical and surgical anatomy of the medical department of the University of the City of New York, assisted by Prof. J. W. I. Arnold, of the same university, and Dr. Liautard, superintendent of the Veterinary College. They agreed that pneumonia was the cause of death, induced by a change of temperature of the water in which the animal had been kept. The official measurements of this female specimen, whose organs were kept in the two institutions named, were: nine feet six inches from snout to tail tips; three feet between tips of caudal fins, with a body breadth of twenty inches and a head breadth of thirteen inches. The lungs, weighing twenty-two pounds, presented on dissection the appearance of having been affected with chronic catarrhal pneumonia. The liver weighed nineteen pounds. The four stomachs were all free from any trace of previous disease.
In looking up the life history of the white whale when opportunity offered, during the last twenty years I have consulted many old whalemen, and they all say that whales of all kinds take their babies on their flukes and scull them along as my female sculled her dying and dead partner. This must be a fact, for the little one could never swim with its parent. But another question arises: Is this purely a female instinct to provide for its young, which was, in the case of my pair, developed into a desire to preserve a companion? or, in other words, would a male have done this, or would a female have done it if she were free and had other companions? Was it love for her mate, or a feeling of selfishness at her lonely position? My female was afterward sent to England in the old transportation box, and was nine days without food, for they will not swallow food in transit, and it lived four days in London, clearing more than enough to pay for the animal and all expenses.
When the free aquarium at Battery Park, New York city, was opened, December 10, 1896, there was talk of getting white whales the next spring, but there was no way to employ men to go for them at a stated salary, as they would have to pass a civil-service examination and become regularly appointed employees of the city. In this emergency Mr. Eugene G. Blackford came forward and advanced the money for the expedition, and it started early in May. On June 4th Professor Butler delivered a pair of them to the superintendent, Dr. Bean. I was aware of their coming, and was at the aquarium, and so was Dr. Latham. The male was lead-colored, was said to be a year and a half old, and was nine feet long. The female was of the usual cream-color, ten feet and a half long, and was said to be a year older than her mate. It is known that young and immature specimens are darker than adults, but I am skeptical about the ages, especially as there is a half year credited to each at the exact time the young are brought forth, and do not know on what the ages are based further than that the young are darker in color for a time.