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“That’s well done!” growled Hearne, shrugging his shoulders, while his companions shook themselves and cursed the humpback. Besides these two kinds of cetacea we had observed several right-whales, and these are the most usually met with in the southern seas. They have no fins, and their blubber is very thick. The taking of these fat monsters of the deep is not attended with much danger.
Whales also afford evidence of the relation existing between the pugnacity of the males and their large size compared with that of the female; the males of the right-whales do not fight together, and they are not larger, but rather smaller, than their females; on the other hand, male sperm-whales fight much together, and their bodies are "often found scarred with the imprint of their rival's teeth," and they are double the size of the females.
The right-whales are vigorously pursued in the southern seas, where the little shell fish called “whales’ food” abound. The whales subsist entirely upon these small crustaceans. Presently, one of these right-whales, measuring sixty feet in length that is to say, the animal was the equivalent of a hundred barrels of oil was seen floating within three cables’ lengths of the schooner.
We saw a few sperm whales; but most of the whales that come upon the coast are fin-backs, hump-backs, and right-whales, which are more difficult to take, and are said not to give oil enough to pay for the trouble. For this reason whale-ships do not come upon the coast after them.
Oh yes. I know of a walking-stick made of one. And strangest of all, how the right-whales have a few little teeth when they are born, which never come through the gums; but, instead, they grow all along their gums, an enormous curtain of clotted hair, which serves as a net to keep in the tiny sea-animals on which they feed, and let the water strain out. You mean whalebone? Is whalebone hair?
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