Order, Cetacea.--The Right (and wrong) Whale.
The largest of the Cetacea is the Right whale, of which--so persistently
is it hunted down--there will soon be but few Left. Some flippant jokist
has remarked that there is no Wrong whale, but this is all Oily Gammon.
There is a right and a wrong to everything--not excepting the leviathan
of the deep.
By the courtesy of the Fisheries, the planting of a harpoon in the
vitals of a Right whale gives the planter a pre-emption claim to it. If
subsequently appropriated by another party it becomes, so far as that
party is concerned, the Wrong whale, and on Trying the case its value
may be recovered in a court of law,--with Whaling costs.
The sperm whale, or cachalot, (genus _physeter_) is a rare visitor in
the higher latitudes. Now and then a solitary specimen is taken in the
Northern Atlantic, but the best place to catch a lot is on the Pacific
coast. It may be mentioned incidentally, as a curious meteorological
coincidence, that Whales and Waterspouts are invariably seen together,
and hence it was, (perhaps,) that the long-necked cloud pointed out by
HAMLET to POLONIUS, reminded that old Grampus of a Whale.
The favorite food of the great marine mammal of the Pacific is the
Squid, and as this little creature swarms in the vicinity of Hawaii, the
cachalot instinctively goes there at certain seasons to chew its Squid
by way of a Sandwich.
Although the capture of the whale involves an immense amount of Paying
Out before anything can be realized, it has probably always been a
lucrative pursuit. The great fish seems, however, to have yielded the
greatest Prophet in the days of JONAH. No man since then has enjoyed the
same facilities for forming a true estimate of the value of the monster,
that were vouchsafed to that singular man. Perhaps during his visit to
Nineveh he entertained the Ninnies with a learned lecture on the
subject, but if so, it has not turned up to reward the research of
modern Archaeologists. LAYARD found the word JONAH inscribed among the
ruins of the old Assyrian city, but the name of the ancient mariner was
unaccompanied by any mention of the whale.
All the whale family, though apparently phlegmatic, are somewhat given
to Blowing up, and, when about to die, instead of taking the matter
coolly and philosophically, they are always terribly Flurried. In fact,
the whale, when in _articulo mortis_, makes a more tremendous rumpus
about its latter end than any other animal either of the sea or land.
The Right whale, though many people make Light of it, is unquestionably
the heaviest of living creatures. Scales never contained anything so
ponderous. But while conceding to Leviathan the proud title of Monarch
of the Deep, it should be remarked that it has a rival on the land,
known as Old King Coal, that completely takes the Shine out of it.
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