s, is enabled to contend with his
enemies in the north, and here also the dam meets the male again. From
my own experience and the inquiries I have been enabled to make, I am
tolerably certain that this is a correct statement of the migration of
these animals, the females annually making the tour of the two great
American continents, attended by their young.

The "maternal solicitude" of the whale makes her a dangerous
adversary, and many serious accidents occur in the season for catching
whales. On one occasion I had nearly paid with my life for the
gratification of my curiosity. I went in a whale-boat rowed by
coloured men, natives of the islands, who were very daring and expert
in this pursuit. We saw a whale, with her calf, playing round the
coral rocks; the attention which the dam showed to its young, the care
she took to warn it of danger, was truly affecting. She led it away
from the boats, swam round it, and sometimes she would embrace it with
her fins, and roll over with it in the waves. We contrived to get the
"'vantage ground" by going to seaward of her, and by that means drove
her into shoal water among the rocks. At last we came so near the
young one, that the harpooner poised his weapon, knowing that the calf
once struck, the mother was our own, for she would never desert it.
Aware of the danger and impending fate of its inexperienced offspring,
she swam rapidly round it, in decreasing circles, evincing the utmost
uneasiness and anxiety; but the parental admonitions were unheeded,
and it met its fate.

The boat approached the side of the younger fish, and the harpooner
buried his tremendous weapon deep in the ribs. The moment it felt the
wound, the poor animal darted from us, taking out a hundred fathom of
line; but a young fish is soon conquered when once well struck: such
was the case in this instance; it was no sooner checked with the line
than it turned on its back, and, displaying its white belly on the
surface of the water, floated a lifeless corpse. The unhappy parent,
with an instinct always more powerful than reason, never quitted the
body.

We hauled in upon the line, and came close up to our quarry just
as another boat had fixed a harpoon in the mother. The tail of the
furious animal descended with irresistible force upon the very centre
of our boat, cutting it in two, and killing two of the men; the
survivors took to swimming for their lives in all directions. The
whale went in pursuit of t