Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-11-08
FACTS ABOUT WHALES.
Toss Known About the Largest Animal
 Than About Small Insects.

nave adopted a neId more peculiar ana en- tertaining than Prof. Frederick w. True, of the N tional Museum. Prof. True is a young man, but he has already spent five years of his career as a scientist in looking up one subject-whales.
 The reason that my attention was di- rected to this subject particularly" said Prof. True to a Washington Post reporter, ''was the fact that so little was known to scientific men concerning whales. Tho works on zoology either treated the whale with a lew generaliZationS or ignored 1t al- together Ny parrose has been to cover this field as well assit possibly can be done with such sources of information as are available. spent four months in England and the continent of Europe in the study of specimens.
 "Only about eighteen species of the fifty Six that frequent the coast of North America are well known, and the majority of these are of forms which have long been under observation. The number of species whose habits, variations and distribution thoroughly understood is still smaller. The life of the whale is passed with but little of it being visible, and it is not an approach able animal. What is known of its life has been obtained at long range, and many CT TOTS have thereby crept in. All the TO- nance about thrilling adventures in the capture of the whale have had their day. It Is still regarded as a dangerous occupa- ton, but nothing like what 1t was Ill the past. You will hear no more stories of hand harpooning and the smoking line run mug out over the bow, the boat lowed by a levlathan at lightning speed, and all those details that illuminated the old-time stories of the sea. Now whales are killed with bomb lance, fired as any other projectile. at a moderately long range. It carries an explosive substance that detonateS when the lance enters the body of the whale. That is the modern way. The whale is gen. | orally harpooned afterward in order to make it fast, and unless this is attempted before the whale is dead it is not attended With any danger"
 "Wh.t arc some of the popular fallacieS in regard to whalcs.'
 ''ln the first place the greatest of them | ali is that inc whale is a fish. It is q man. | nal with none of the characteristics of q | fish, except that it exists in the water. An animal that nurses its young, and has rudi- | mentary hind legs, could hardly correspond 1 to a ii Sh il any respect. In almost every l cut of x whale you will see the animal | spouting a tremendous volume of water l from nt4 blcU-lIoles This Is purely ] il;2.!:s ' habit on the part of the whales 1 Inc DUW-ho.cs of lhe whale correspond to
 the nostrils of other animals When it | comes to the surface to breathe, it expels tho air from it's lungs with a violent effort | It's nostrils gre apt to be slightly under water, and the result is q column of spray | rises in tine air. This has been mistaken in l the distance by sailors for column of
 water. When whale had been harpooned
 so that is lungs had been penetrated, 1t is | likely that the whale spouted blood and | water through its noStrilS, and this has | confirmed the original error when the sail | DTS observed it at close range.
 ''Another popular error," continued Prof. | True, is that all whales furnish whale | bone. The two great classifications among | whales are the toothed and the whaleboue
 varieties. The sperm whale is a toothed
 whale, and the right whale Is whalehone | whale. The wEa!eAone in good-sized | whale is worth several hundreds of dollars.
 The toothed whales really have not much | use for their teeth, as they can not chew
 any thin 2 with them. They are merely &
 TOW of points that serve to grasp a fish or other kind of prey, and hold it until it can | work 1t down it's threat The teeth are only | on the lower jaw. There are no molars | among the teeth, and they can not grind | the food. Then the jaw is not hung so that i it can do any thing moro than snap. Tho | whaleboue whale uses the fringe of whale | bone around the upper jaw in lieu of teeth. | It strikes a school of shelltish, which
 abound in great numbers in the sea, and
 when it gets them in its mouth it closes Its | jaws. The water is squeezed out and the | whala swallows every thing that is left" | ''HoT large an object can whale swal- |, low!"
 The threat of the largest specimen is
 not more that three inches and a halt in ! diameter"
 ''Have any species been eXterminateda''
 ''From what we know 1t is not probable. | For a few years the right whale disap- | peared totally from the North American | coast. None were stranded, and there was | no evidence that any more were in eXiS- | tence. year or two ago ono or two speci- | mems were seen, and now they are reason | ably plentiful again. Whether they disap-
 peared because they were pursued by man | or for some other reason we can not estab- | fish. That they totally disappeared, how | ever, is conclusive. The fact is, that when
 a certain kind of whale becomes so scarce
 as to be in danger of eXtermination it then
 becomes unprotitable to chase it. and the | opportunity for a renewal of the breed is | favorable.h
 ''Do they breed rapidly!'
 "One or two at a birth is the rule. The
 smaller varieties generally bear twins, and
 single one at birth Is probably the case
 with the greater varieties. The infants are
 born pretty well able to take care of them | selves, though they are carefully nursed
 by the mother until they are swift enough
 to provide themselves with food. It Is the | Oellet that the mother IlCatS on her SluS on
 top of the water when nursing, so that the
 young can suclzle with thelr blowholes out
 of water. Whether this is true or not do
 not know. A female with young is very
 wary and difficult to approach, so that very
 little can be gathered on this point from
 actual observation
 | s'Do whales ever sleep!'
 '.That is one of the many things that we
 do not know. Sperm whales have been
 known to lie on the water motionless for a
 considerable period, but it can only be | guessed whether they are asleep or not. A
 whale could not sleep under water for any
 length of time. Ithas a capacity for storing
 great deal of air in the blood vessels that
 fill the neck and are found well down
 through the body; but at the furthest this
 could not last 1t more than half hour,
 when it would have to come to the surface
 to blow. It is assumed that many of the | lower forms of life never sleep; but in the
 case of the whale do not know that that
 point has ever been investigated. It will
 be long tune before we know all that 1t is
 necessary to know about the rovers of the