I believe he is nearest to a pike, though his backbone is different from a pike, and from all other known fishes.
But is he not very rare?
Oh no: he comes to Devonshire and Cornwall with the mackerel, as he has come here; and in calm weather he will swim on the top of the water, and play about, and catch flies, and stand bolt upright with his long nose in the air; and when the fisher-boys throw him a stick, he will jump over it again and again, and play with it in the most ridiculous way.
And what will they do with him?
Cut him up for bait, I suppose, for he is not very good to eat.
Certainly, he does smell very nasty.
Have you only just found out that? Sometimes when I have caught one, he has made the boat smell so that I was glad to throw him overboard, and so he saved his life by his nastiness. But they will catch plenty of mackerel now; for where he is they are; and where they are, perhaps the whale will be; for we are now well outside the harbour, and running across the open bay; and lucky for you that there are no rollers coming in from the Atlantic, and spouting up those cliffs in columns of white foam.
* * *
"Hoch!"
Ah! Who was that coughed just behind the ship?
Who, indeed? look round and see.
There is nobody. There could not be in the sea.
Look--there, a quarter of a mile away.
Oh! What is that turning over in the water, like a great black wheel? And a great tooth on it, and--oh! it is gone!
Never mind. It will soon show itself again.
But what was it?
The whale: one of them, at least; for the men say there are two different ones about the bay. That black wheel was part of his back, as he turned down; and the tooth on it was his back-fin.
But the noise, like a giant's cough?
Rather like the blast of a locomotive just starting. That was his breath.
What? as loud as that?
Why not? He is a very big fellow, and has big lungs.
How big is he?
I cannot say: perhaps thirty or forty feet long. We shall be able to see better soon. He will come up again, and very likely nearer us, where those birds are.
I don't want him to come any nearer.
You really need not be afraid. He is quite harmless.
But he might run against the yacht.
He might: and so might a hundred things happen which never do.
But I never heard of one of these whales running against a vessel; so I suppose he has sense enough to know that the yacht is no concern of his, and to keep out of its way.
But why does he make that tremendous noise only once, and then go under water again?
You must remember that he is not a fish. A fish takes the water in through his mouth continually, and it runs over his gills, and out behind through his gill-covers. So the gills suck-up the air out of the water, and send it into the fish's blood, just as they do in the newt-larva.
Yes, I know.
But the whale breathes with lungs like you and me; and when he goes under water he has to hold his breath, as you and I have.
What a long time he can hold it.
Yes. He is a wonderful diver. Some whales, they say, will keep under for an hour. But while he is under, mind, the air in his lungs is getting foul, and full of carbonic acid, just as it would in your lungs, if you held your breath. So he is forced to come up at last: and then out of his blowers, which are on the top of his head, he blasts out all the foul breath, and with it the water which has got into his mouth, in a cloud of spray. Then he sucks in fresh air, as much as he wants, and dives again, as you saw him do just now.
And what does he do under water?
Look--and you will see. Look at those birds. We will sail up to them; for Mr. Whale will probably rise among them soon.
Oh, what a screaming and what a fighting! How many sorts there are! What are those beautiful little ones, like great white swallows, with crested heads and forked tails, who hover, and then dip down and pick up something?
Terns--sea-swallows. And there are gulls in hundreds, you see, large and small, gray-backed and black-backed; and over them all two or three great gannets swooping round and round.
Oh! one has fallen into the sea!
Yes, with a splash just like a cannon ball. And here he comes up again, with a fish in his beak. If he had fallen on your head, with that beak of his, he would have split it open. I have heard of men catching gannets by tying a fish on a board, and letting it float; and when the gannet strikes at it he drives his bill into the board, and cannot get it out.
But is not that cruel?
I think so. Gannets are of no use, for eating, or anything else.
What a noise! It is quite deafening. And what are those black birds about, who croak like crows, or parrots?
Look at them. Some have broad bills, with a white stripe on it, and cry something like the moor-hens at home. Those are razor-bills.
And what are those who say "marrock," something like a parrot?
The ones with thin bills? they are guillemots, "murres" as we call them in Devon: but in some places they call them "marrocks," from what they say.
And each has a little baby bird swimming behind it. Oh! there: the mother has cocked up her tail and dived, and the little one is swimming about looking for her! How it cries! It is afraid of the yacht.
And there she comes up again, and cries "marrock" to call it.
Look at it swimming up to her, and cuddling to her, quite happy.
Quite happy. And do you not think that any one who took a gun and shot either that mother or that child would be both cowardly and cruel?
But they might eat them.
These sea-birds are not good to eat. They taste too strong of fish-oil. They are of no use at all, except that the gulls' and terns' feathers are put into girls' hats.
Well they might find plenty of other things to put in their hats.
So I think. Yes: it would be very cruel, very cruel indeed, to do what some do, shoot at these poor things, and leave them floating about wounded till they die. But I suppose, if one gave them one's mind about such doings, and threatened to put the new Sea Fowl Act in force against them, and fine them, and show them up in the newspapers, they would say they meant no harm, and had never thought about its being cruel.
Then they ought to think.