Which all goes to prove that in these latitudes
"you never can tell."
Whale-men at Herschel give whales five names according to age and size:
they are "suckers" under a year, "short-heads" as long as they are
suckled, "stunts" at two years, "skull-fish" with baleen less than six
feet long, and "size-fish" at the age when a boy reaches man's estate. A
whale needs no re-incarnation theory of the theosophist, for he crowds
enough experience into one sea-life to satisfy the fact-thirst of the
greediest little Gradgrind. Fancy, thrashing the sea for a thousand
years! A "sucker" who happened to be disporting round the British Isles
when Alfred the Great was burning those historic cakes and prefiguring
with candles the eight-hour day may still be chasing whale-brit round an
Arctic iceberg. The whale mates, we are told, once and for keeps.
Jogging along from one ocean end to another with the same wife for a
thousand years without turning fluke to look at an affinity! Shades of
Chicago and Pittsburg, hide your wings! Whales follow their annual
migration as regularly as do moose and caribou on land, the seal and
salmon in the Pacific.
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