after are the common whale of the Greenland Seas, which is called
the "right whale," and the sperm whale of the South Sea. Both kinds are
found in the south; but the sperm whale never goes to the North Seas.
Both kinds grow to an enormous size--sometimes to seventy feet in
length, but there is considerable difference in their appearance,
especially about the head. In a former chapter I have partly described
the head of a _right_ whale, which has whalebone instead of teeth, with
its blow-holes on the back of the head. The sperm whale has large white
teeth in its lower-jaw and none at all in the upper. It has only one
blow-hole, and that a little one, much farther forward on its head, so
that sailors can tell, at a great distance, what kind of whales they
see, simply by their manner of spouting.

The most remarkable feature about the sperm whale is the bluntness of
its clumsy head, which looks somewhat like a big log with the end sawn
square off, and this head is about one-third of its entire body.

The sperm whale feeds differently from the right whale. He seizes his
prey with his powerful teeth, and lives, to a great extent, on large
cuttlefish. Some of them have been seen to vomit lumps of these
cuttlefish as long as a whale-boat. He is much fiercer, too, than the
right whale, which almost always takes to flight when struck, but the
sperm whale will sometimes turn on its foes, and smash their boat with a
blow of his blunt head or tail.

Fighting-whales, as they are called, are not uncommon. These are
generally old bulls, which have become wise from experience, and give
the whalers great trouble--sometimes carrying away several harpoons and
lines. The lower-jaw of one old bull of this kind was found to be
sixteen feet long, and it had forty-eight teeth, some of them a foot
long. A number of scars about his head showed that this fellow had been
in the wars. When two bull-whales take to fighting, their great effort
is to catch each other by the lower-jaw, and, when locked together, they
struggle with a degree of fury that cannot be described.

It is not often that the sperm whale actually attacks a ship; but there
are a few cases of this kind which cannot be doubted. The following
story is certainly true; and while it shows how powerful a creature the
whale is, it also shows what terrible risk and sufferings the whaleman
has frequently to encounter.

In the month of August 1819, the American whale-ship _E