"There is where you are wrong, Ben. They live in the water, but not like fish. Fish breathe under water, and die if taken out of it; whales can not breathe under water any better than you could, and if kept there would be drowned without fail. Whales have warm blood like ours; the blood of fishes is cold."
"But how do whales breathe, then, Uncle Horace?"
"You have read of whales spouting, I am sure, Bennie. Their spouting is their breathing. They go under water for their food, etc., holding their breath while they are below. A sperm-whale can hold his breath an hour at a time; a right-whale only about fifteen to twenty minutes. When he comes to the surface he blows out his breath through his 'blow-holes,' which in the right-whale are on the top of the head. This blowing is of course done with great force, and makes a sound which can be heard at quite a long distance, and the water and mucus which the blow-holes contained are driven out in a cloud of spray many feet in height. That is the spout of a whale. You see always in pictures a column of water represented; that is all foolishness. There is no such thing; there is a puff of spray, and nothing more."
"I should think it was a hard way to live, Uncle Horace, to have to come up to the surface every time I wanted to breathe."
"Perhaps the whale does not think so, Bennie. He comes to the surface as naturally as you open your mouth. All his motion is made by the strokes of his tail, which the whalemen call his 'flukes.' Now look at this drawing of his flukes. It is shaped, you see, somewhat like a fish's tail, but then it is not placed like one. The tail of a fish always has its flat sides 'up and down,' so that when he strikes with it he swims ahead or to either side as he chooses, and if he wishes to come to the surface, he has to turn his tail in order to do it. The flukes of a whale lie 'flat,' and every blow drives him ahead, or upward or downward. A blow upward sends him flying toward the surface like a shot, and he doubtless has no more idea of hardship in breathing than you have."
"Did you ever see any other whale as large as this one, Uncle Horace?"
"This is one of very good size for its kind, but compared with many that I have seen, it is small. And I am glad to correct for you, Bennie, the statements which have been made about the size of this whale. It was said to be sixty-nine feet long, and forty-five feet in circumference. I measured it. Its length is not quite forty-nine feet, and its circumference a little less than twenty-five. It was also said that there were three kinds of whales, sperm-whales, fin-backs, and right-whales; this one was called a right-whale. Now, Bennie, I can count up over thirty species of whales at this moment, and there are probably several others. There are two groups of them, bone-whales and toothed whales, the first having whalebone, and the second, teeth instead."
"But, Uncle Horace, have not all whales bones?"
"Yes; but that may not mean whalebone."
"That is queer. What other kind of bones can a whale have, I should like to know? I should think they would be whalebone any way."