The record-union., 1898-11-14

about one yard in length, and the COM
plete animal must have measured over
seven feet; adding the arms, we get
monster of colossal strength.
Its most remarkable feature Is a cui-
rass of large prominent scales which
cover its visceral bag; these are quite
unknown with animals of that order.
The vomitings of the same sperm
whale, who covered two acres of the
sea with his blood, contained another
immense cephalopod, a Cucioteuthis.
with arms as strong as a mans, and
carrying suckers armed with claws as
powerful as those of a tiger; this ami
NAL Is furnished with luminous or
gans. In 1897 another large cetacean
that I was attacking with my whale
boats vomited a large fragment of a
cephalopod which was peculiar in being
of viscid substance not unlike glycer-
inc; no net could retain it, and we only
secured it by dipping it up with a large
tub as well as the mass of water in
which it was floating. But it Will be
convenient to remind the reader that
cetaceans divides themselves into two
principal groups. One class, to which
belongs the right whale or other marine
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very small animals that they absorb
simply by moving about with their
mouths OPEN They have no teeth, but
a sort of sieve made of what is called
whalebone
Another group, to which belongs the
sperm whale, is armed with powerful
teeth, a single one weighing sometimes
as much as six pounds. They live upon
big prey, mostly cephalopods, as afore-
said. These cetaceans are ferocious,
while the others have a much milder
temper, and some of them, as the "Orca
Gladiator can be very dangerous to
attack. Two years ago I chased a
school of three of these, just off the
Monaco Rock, and very soon one was
struck by my whaler's harpoon. While
it was ending with violent struggles,
the two others came alongside the
whaleboat and seemed willing to fight
for their companion. They swami around
and around, sometimes so close that the
men touched their enormous backs
with their hands. I had to release at
once that boat, and for an hour we
were seventeen men and three boats)
engaged in a most grand wrestling. The
result was that a second orque was
killed by spear stroke.
If we sight some wreckage-as log
or a barrel-we always find under 1t or
near it fishes of a good size and of
different species that never seem to
abandon this guide that they have
chosen. and that takes them across the
Atlantic. They are very easily caught
with a fish spear and the funny fish
are hooked with towline baited with
rough imitation of a squid. Many
sailors wrecked on the Atlantic, and
abandoned for days and weeks on its
apparently uninhabited wilderness,
have died of hunger among a most
abundant and attainable food, and they
could. have been saved had they simply
known it and possessed the very simple
gear required. Therefore, / think that
all the principal boats of a ship ought
to be permanently provided with a few
There is no very obvious explanation
of the fascination which any floating or
drifting object seems to have for ma
rine animals of various sorts. Even
turtles, which are very stupid and
sperm whales or other cetaceans, which
seem intelligent, are attracted by
buoy or by ship, and any kind of
apparatus brought up from the depth,
even a cable end, is often accompanied
by single fish or small companies,
which get hopeless bewildered when the
object disappears out of the water
Nature.