Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1911-02-09
From the Youths Companion.
A TRAGEDY OF THE DEEP.

sun Will HCl HSW-UOlu lnioiit HSo'
ling against her side. The baby was a
slngrdar-appearing little creature, black
and glistening with oil. His massive and
ill-Shaped head was far too large for his
tapering body, constituting a third or
more OF his total length OF twelve feet.
His most conspicuous feature was an ex-
pansive, bow-Shaped mouth, which
seemed fixed in Sardonic grin. Neck
he had none, neither visible ears, and his
round, ox-like eyes were set far back be-
tW eenlshoulder andajaw- angle, thus re-
stricting his range of vision TO limited
field on each side. Soothed by The slow,
rhythmic rocking of his cradle,-com-
monty known as the Atlantic Ocean,-he
floated motionless with sable body half
submerged, still dazed by his recent
plunge into conscious existence.
When his hunger had been satisfied,
the parent cetacean availed herself OF his
fulfilled contentment TO seek her own din
ner. Like that of most "grown-upS,
her chosen diet differed materially from
that of her offspring. Many thousands,
perhaps millions, of minute pteropodS
and cruStacea would be sacrificed to the
inner whale ere she could exclaim with
Sydney Smith:
"Fate cannot harm me- have dined
to-day y
Her table manners and furniture were
OF the most primitive. The measureless
ocean bowl served her for tureen, and
her own capacious mouth for plate and
spoon. Tucking her calf under one broad,
flexible swimming-paw, as a human
mother carries a babe between arm and
hip while performing household duties,
the great mammal hunched Der leathery
back, gave her tail preliminary flourish,
and vanished into the deepS.
AS the water closed above her with
scarce ripple to show where she had
disappeared, she dexterously turned and
shot ahead just beneath the surface, pro-
PEELED by flail-like strokes of her power
full fukes. With mouth opened to its
fullest capacity, she would scoop IN sew
eral tons of sea-water, then snap togeth-
er her mighty jaws and expel it from be-
tween her lips at the sides. Before be-
ing expelled, however, the water was
forced through marvellous sieve, which
neatly extracted and retained the count
less tiny organisms with which it teemed.
This sieve was composed of dagger
shaped plates of baleen (whalebone),
hung-several hundred on Side-like
rows of ebon stalactiteS from the whales
upper jaw. In the middle, where the
mouth cavity was deepest, these reached
length Of six or seven feet, taperina
at the front and back to minimum OF
thirty inches. When the yawning mouth
closed. the pointed extremitieS OF the
baleen were enclosed between the white,
gliStening cushion of the tongue and the
inner surface of the puffy lower lip. AS
the rear edge OF each plate was frayed
into long, hair-like fringeS which were
inextricably matted together, the device
formed a trap whence there was no es-
cape, and the hapless cephalopodS and
mollusks, once entangled, were certain
sooner or later 10 find their way down
the monsters ludicrously disproportion-
ate three e-and- -haf-inch gullet.
For time the baby found the swift
motion intensely exhilarating. The wa
ter felt deliciously cool to his Sun-baked
little body, and he amused himself by
thraShing his dminutive tail up and down
in feeble imitation of his mothers sledge-
hammer strokes He discovered that
he could both hear and see better in the
clear green depths, and watched with be-
wildered interest the myriad moving
shapes-some heavy and sluggish, others
darling TO and fro like living ShuttleS-
that traversed the trackless wastes.
After ten or twelve minutes, however,
his interest in the kaleidoscope water
world without was obscured by grow
ing sense of discomfort within. AS a
matter OF fact, he was slowly aSphyxiat-
ing, and knew neither the cause nor cure.
lust as he began struggling in terror and
distress, the mother rose with him to the
surface. The instant her blowhoIes were
above the water she "spouted" with a
noise like a steam-exhaust, sending a
fountain of vapcr eight feet into the air.
The flipperling followed suit, expelling
the vitiated contents of his lungs in a
slender column just visible against the
blue. like the human breath on frosty
winter day.
The relief was instantaneous. Luxuri-
ouslv he drew in deep draft OF the tin
Cling, salt-charged air, and the next mo-
ment his guardian had dragged him again
into the depths and resumed her inter
rupted feast. When they reappeared, the
baby noticed for the first time huge
torn, larger even than his mothers. NOV
ing slowly in course parallel with their
own. Whenever they sounded. the
black shape followed like shadow, only
to reemerge, with spout like the roar OF
an avalanche, at almost the same instant
as themselves.
The stranger was a magnificent bull
whale, measuring fully sixty feet from
muzzle to fluke-tips. OF course the baby