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But soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an instant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia's Natural Bridge, and warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air, the grand god revealed himself, sounded, and went out of sight. Hoveringly, halted, and dipping on the wing, the white sea-fowls longingly lingered over the agitated pool that he left.
A lead was instantly dropped alongside, in order to ascertain whether the anchors held. This infallible test, however, gave the melancholy certainty that the schooner was still drifting her length in rather less than two minutes. The only hope now was that the flukes of the anchors might catch in better holding ground than they had yet met with.
I'm old and I'm stiff, now, young madam, but afore I was nineteen, I stood at the head of the dance, at a ball on the cape, and that with a partner almost as handsome as yourself ay! and this was after I had three broad flukes logg'd against my name."
Perhaps I was a little off my guard; at any rate, my heart almost leaped into my mouth when just after an ugly rush past us, which I thought had carried him to a safe distance, he stopped dead, lifted his flukes, and brought them down edgeways with a vicious sweep that only just missed the boat's gunwale and shore off the two oars on that side as if they had been carrots.
We were just in time to see a shower of spray falling, and the flukes or tail of some monstrous fish disappear in the sea a few hundred yards off. We waited some time to see if he would rise again. As we stood, the sea seemed to open up at our very feet; an immense spout of water was sent with a snort high into the air, and the huge blunt head of a sperm whale arose before us.
The common parasitic diseases of domestic animals are caused by the following groups of worms: Flukes or trematoides; tapeworms or Cestoides; thorn-headed worms or Acanthocephales; and round-worms or Nematoids. Flat worms, such as tapeworms and flukes, require secondary hosts.
Just astern of the mouth are the swimming paws; not that the whale makes much use of them, for it works itself on by its flukes, but they serve to balance the body, and assist the female in supporting her young." While Walter had been looking at the whales, the crew had been busy in preparing for the operation of "cutting in," or taking off the blubber.
"Well, I'll tell you, my lad," whispered Joe. "Steady there steady! I am going to lower down the grapnel, for I dursen't run in among the trees. They'd crackle too much if we tried to moor to a branch, and we don't want to capsize. Harry Briggs, look alive, and drop the flukes overboard; make fast, and let us swing."
"I hope so," I said. "Ahem!" was his answer, as he walked away. At length, shortening sail, we ran up alongside the first whale that had been killed. The men descended to its back with ropes round their waists to hook on the tackles to its head and flukes. We had then to wait until the boats towed the other whale up to the opposite side. We eagerly watched their proceedings.
This boat, when it reached the spot where it was to cast the anchor, could not place it in the proper position to make the flukes fix in the sand, for one of the extremities already touched the bottom, while the other was still put of the water: being thus ill fixed, it could not answer the purpose intended; when they began to heave upon it, it made very little resistance, and would have been dragged on board again if they had continued to work at the capstern.
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