Part 6 (1/2)
Sometimes white petrels would congregate in considerable numbers near the schooner; and sometimes petrels of another species, with brown borders on their wings, would come in sight; now there would be flocks of damiers skimming the water; and now groups of penguins, whose clumsy gait appears so ludicrous on sh.o.r.e; but, as Captain Hull pointed out, when their stumpy wings were employed as fins, they were a match for the most rapid of fish, so that sailors have often mistaken them for bonitos.
High over head, huge albatrosses, their outspread wings measuring ten feet from tip to tip, would soar aloft, thence to swoop down towards the deep, into which they plunged their beaks in search of food. Such incidents and scenes as these were infinite in their variety, and it was accordingly only for minds that were obtuse to the charms of nature that the voyage could be monotonous.
On the day the wind s.h.i.+fted, Mrs. Weldon was walking up and down on the ”Pilgrim's” stern, when her attention was attracted by what seemed to her a strange phenomenon. All of a sudden, far as the eye could reach, the sea had a.s.sumed a reddish hue, as if it were tinged with blood.
Both d.i.c.k and Jack were standing close behind her, and she cried,-
”Look, d.i.c.k, look! the sea is all red. Is it a sea-weed that is making the water so strange a colour?
”No,” answered d.i.c.k, ”it is not a weed; it is what the sailors call whales' food; it is formed, I believe, of innumerable myriads of minute crustacea.”
”Crustacea they may be,” replied Mrs. Weldon, ”but they must be so small that they are mere insects. Cousin Benedict no doubt will like to see them.”
She called aloud,-
”Benedict! Benedict! come here! we have a sight here to interest you.”
The amateur naturalist slowly emerged from his cabin followed by Captain Hull.
”Ah! yes, I see!” said the captain; ”whales' food; just the opportunity for you, Mr. Benedict; a chance not to be thrown away for studying one of the most curious of the crustacea.”
”Nonsense!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Benedict contemptuously; ”utter nonsense!”
”Why? what do you mean, Mr. Benedict?” retorted the captain; ”surely you, as an entomologist, must know that I am right in my conviction that these crustacea belong to one of the six cla.s.ses of the articulata.”
The disdain of Cousin Benedict was expressed by a repeated sneer.
”Are you not aware, sir, that my researches as an entomologist are confined entirely to the hexapoda?”
Captain Hull, unable to repress a smile, only answered good-humouredly,-
”I see, sir, your tastes do not lie in the same direction as those of the whale.”
And turning to Mrs. Weldon, he continued,-
”To whalemen, madam, this is a sight that speaks for itself. It is a token that we ought to lose no time in getting out our lines and looking to the state of our harpoons. There is game not far away.”
Jack gave vent to his astonishment.
”Do you mean that great creatures like whales feed on such tiny things as these?”
”Yes, my boy,” said the captain; ”and I daresay they are as nice to them as semolina and ground rice are to you.
When a whale gets into the middle of them he has nothing to do but to open his jaws, and, in a minute, hundreds of thousands of these minute creatures are inside the fringe or whalebone around his palate, and he is sure of a good mouthful.”
”So you see, Jack,” said d.i.c.k, ”the whale gets his shrimps without the trouble of sh.e.l.ling them.”
”And when he has just closed his snappers is the very time to give him a good taste of the harpoon,” added Captain Hull.
The words had hardly escaped the captain's lips when a shout from one of the sailors announced,-