CHAPTER XI
THE LARGEST ANIMAL THAT EVER LIVED
The blue whale is not only the largest animal that lives today upon the earth or in its waters, but, so far as is known, it is the largest animal that has ever lived. Even those giant extinct reptiles, the dinosaurs, which splashed along the borders of the inland seas of Wyoming and Montana 3,000,000 years ago, could not approach a blue whale either in length or weight.
In 1903, Dr. F. A. Lucas weighed in sections a blue whale taken at Newfoundland. The animal was 78 feet long and 35 feet around the shoulders; the head was 19 feet in length and the flukes 16 feet from tip to tip. The total weight was 63 tons; the flesh weighed 40 tons, the blubber 8 tons, the blood, viscera, and baleen 7 tons, and the bones 8 tons. So far as I am aware this is the only specimen which has ever been actually weighed.
Exaggerated accounts of the size of this species are current even in reputable books on natural history, but the largest specimen which has yet been actually measured and recorded is one 87 feet long, stranded a few years ago upon the coast of New Zealand; this animal must have weighed at least 75 tons. I have measured two blue whales 85 feet long but individuals of this size are rare.
A blue whale at Aikawa, Japan. “The largest specimen which has yet been actually measured and recorded is one 87 feet long, stranded a few years ago upon the coast of New Zealand; this animal must have weighed at least 75 tons.”
All the gunners who have hunted in the South Atlantic or Pacific tell remarkable tales of the enormous blue whales killed off Kerguelen and South Georgia Islands. I have no doubt that this species reaches 90 or possibly 95 feet, but the stories of 115- and 120-foot whales are certainly myths. As Dr. Lucas aptly says, “All whales shrink under the tape measure.”
An eighty-two foot blue whale at Vancouver Island. The mouth is about nineteen feet in length, and the outer edges of the baleen plates are well shown.
Undoubtedly the principal reason why whales are able to attain such an enormous size is because their bodies are supported by the water in which they live. A bird is limited to the weight which its wings can bear up in the air. A land animal, if it becomes too large, cannot hold its body off the ground or move about readily and is doomed to certain destruction. But a whale has to face none of these problems and can grow without restraint. The sperm and right whales float when killed, but the fin whales usually sink although the specific gravity of their bodies is but little more than that of water.
Because whales live in a supporting medium their young are of enormous size at birth, in some instances the calf being almost half the length of its mother. I once took from an 80-foot blue whale a 25-foot baby which weighed about 8 tons. The calf was just ready for birth and was fully formed, the whalebone being about three inches long.
At Aikawa a sperm whale 32 feet in length contained a fœtus 14 feet, 8 inches long, and in Alaska while a 65-foot finback whale was being drawn out of the water upon the slip she gave birth to a 22-foot baby, which, of course, was dead.
Not long ago I read an account of a happy event of this sort which was said to have occurred on the Labrador coast, where the baby whale flopped off into the water and swam away. This was, of course, not true, for the fœtus would die with its mother, but when such stories once find their way into print they are difficult to stop.
The wonderful strength of the blue whale is almost beyond belief, and I have listened to many stories from Norwegians which I would not dare repeat here although personally I believe them to be true. J. G. Millais, Esq., has given an interesting account of a blue whale hunt, which I am quoting in full since it shows, in some degree, of what this magnificent animal is capable:
The open mouth of a blue whale. Ten or twelve men could stand in the mouth, but the throat is only eight inches in diameter.
The most remarkable and protracted hunt on record after a Whale was experienced by the steamer Puma in 1903. The most exaggerated accounts of this appeared in the American and English papers, where the journalists went so far as to say that the Whale had towed the ship from Newfoundland to Labrador, and other wild statements. The following particulars were given by Hans Johanessen, mate of the Puma, so they are, at any rate, first hand.
The Puma spied and “struck” a large Blue Whale six miles from Placentia at nine o’clock in the morning. The animal immediately became “wild,” and it was found impossible to get near enough to fire another harpoon into it. For the entire day it towed the steamer, with engines at half speed astern, at a rate of six knots. Toward evening a second rope was made fast to the stern of the vessel and attached to the first line, now “out” about one mile. The steamer then put on full speed ahead. This seemed to incense the Whale, which put forth all its strength and dragged the whole of the after part of the vessel under water, flooding the after cabin and part of the engine room. The stern rope was immediately cut with an ax and the danger averted.
The upper jaw of a blue whale, showing the mat of hairlike bristles on the inner edges of the baleen plates.
All through the night the gallant Whale dragged the steamer, with the dead weight of two miles of rope and the engines going half speed astern, and at 9 A. M. the following morning the monster seemed to be as lively and powerful as ever. At 10 A. M., however, its strength seemed to decrease, and at 11 it was wallowing on the surface, where at 12:30 it was finally lanced by the captain. This great fight occupied twenty-eight hours, the Whale having dragged the steamer a distance of thirty miles to Cape St. Mary.
One of the troubles of this form of whaling is the difficulty of avoiding fishing craft when the Whale is struck. In Shetland and Newfoundland captains are not allowed to fire at a Whale within one mile of boats or two miles of the coast, but these precautions are generally ignored. Captain Nilsen, when hunting in the Cabot in Hermitage Bay in 1903, struck a large bull which lay as if dead alongside the steamer. The crew were about to attach the tail to the bow-chains when the Whale suddenly recovered and started full speed for the coast, towing the steamer at ten knots.
After an hour it stopped and lay on the surface of the sea, when Captain Nilsen fired a second harpoon, which only had the effect of waking up the monster. It then went full speed for the fishing fleet, which was close at hand, dived under their nets, and did damage to the extent of a hundred dollars. After a further rush of five miles a third harpoon was fired, which killed the Whale right opposite the factory.[5]
My friend, Captain H. G. Melsom, tells me that while hunting off the coast of Siberia he struck a blue whale which ran out three thousand feet of line and, with engines at full speed astern, towed the ship forward for seven hours at no time at a less speed than eight knots. Some years before this in Norway he shot a blue whale at five P. M., which dragged the ship with engines at full speed astern, until eleven P. M., when he slowed down to half speed; at one A. M. he changed to dead slow and he finally killed the whale at two o’clock in the morning.