net has
caught.

The wisdom as well as the necessity of this arrangement is very plain.
Of course, while dashing through the sea in this fashion, with his
mouth agape, the whale must keep his throat closed, else the water
would rush down it and choke him. 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 blowholes, 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". After the upper jaw came the
lower jaw and throat, with the tongue. This last was an enormous mass
of fat, about as large as an ox, and it weighed fifteen hundred or two
thousand pounds. After this was got in, the rest of the work was
simple. The blubber of the body was peeled off in great strips,
beginning at the neck and being cut spirally towards the tail. It was
hoisted on board by the blocks, the captain and mates cutting, and the
men at the windlass hoisting, and the carcass slowly turning round
until we got an unbroken piece of blubber, reaching from the water to
nearly as high as the mainyard-arm. This mass was nearly a foot thick,
and it looked like fat pork. It was cut off close to the deck, and
lowered into the blubber-room, where the two men stationed there
attacked it with knives, cut it into smaller pieces, and stowed it
away. Then another piece was hoisted on board in the same fashion, and
so on we went till every bit of blubber was cut off; and I heard the
captain remark to the mate when the work was done, that the fish was a
good fat one, and he wouldn't wonder if it turned out to be worth 300
pounds.

Now, when this process was going on, a new point of interest arose
which I had not thought of before, although my messmate, Tom Lokins,
had often spoken of it on the voyage out. This was the arrival of
great numbers of sea-birds.

Tom had often told me of the birds that always keep company with
whalers; but I had forgotten all about it until I saw an enormous
albatross come sailing majestically through the air towards us. This
was the largest bird I ever saw, and no wonder, for it is the largest
bird that flies. Soon after that, another arrived, and although we
were more than a thousand miles from any shore, we were speedily
scented out and surrounded by hosts of