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When he desires a meal he opens his great mouth and rushes into the midst of a shoal of medusae; the little things get entangled in thousands among the hairy ends of the whalebone, and when the monster has got a large enough mouthful, he shuts his lower-jaw and swallows what his net has caught. The wisdom as well as the necessity of this arrangement is very plain.
Dinner at the Premier's was composed and served with the same incongruous blending of the barbaric and the refined, the Oriental and the European, that characterized the furniture and adornments of his palace. The saucy little pages who handled the dishes had cigarettes between their pouting lips, and from time to time hopped over the heads of Medusae to expectorate.
Shutting his throat then, as he does, the water is obliged to flow out of his mouth as fast as it flows in; it is also spouted up through his blow-holes, and this with such violence that many of the little creatures would be swept out along with it, but for the hairy-ended whalebone which lets the sea-water out, but keeps the medusae in. Well, let us return to our "cutting-in."
There, summer after summer, he pursued his researches on the medusae; from the smaller and more exquisite kinds, such as the Pleurobrachyias, Idyias, and Bolinas, to the massive Cyaneas, with their large disks and heavy tentacles, many yards in length. Nothing can be prettier than the smaller kinds of jellyfishes.
Not even a twentieth part of those medusae, or one in each thousand of those sparks among the foam. Perhaps I need not know. And yet why was the thirst awakened in me, save to be satisfied at last? Perhaps to become more intense, with every fresh delicious draught of knowledge.... Death, beautiful, wise, kind death; when will you come and tell me what I want to know?
Instead of teeth the mouth of the whale is furnished with a curious framework of a substance called baleen; you will know it by the name of whalebone; it is arranged in rows, and projects beyond the lips in a hanging fringe; the food of the whale consists of shrimps, small fishes, sea-snails, and innumerable minute creatures, called medusae, which are found in those seas where the whales feed in such vast quantities that they make the water of a deep green or olive color.
"Look, look, doctor!" said one of the ladies, pointing to the sea, where a series of vivid flashes rapidly followed one another. "Yes, my dear, I see," he replied; "that was some fish darting through the water, and disturbing the medusae. If you watch you can see the same thing going on all round."
They swim about for a time, until they have found a resting-place, where they attach themselves, each one founding a Hydroid stock of its own, which will in time produce a new brood of Medusae. This series of facts, presented here in their connection, had been observed separately before their true relation was understood.
Well, after a good while, I made bold to ask the young doctor what he had found out. "'I've found, said he, 'that the greenness of these seas is in truth caused by uncountable numbers of medusae " "Ha! that's the word," shouted Tom Lokins, "Medoosy, that's wot the captain calls 'em. Heave ahead, Fred."
Thus did the exploration of this wide and interesting opening fall to our good fortune; as we proceeded inwards, several beautiful medusae passed the ship, and our hopes were roused to the highest pitch by the muddy appearance of the water.
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