to the whalers the position of their game.  The “spouts” vary in appearance, as has been mentioned, owing to the number and situation of the orifices by which the exhausted air escapes.  No sooner is the vitiated air exhaled, than the lungs receive a new supply; and the animal either remains near the surface, rolling about and sporting amid the waves, or descends again, a short distance, in quest of its food.  This food, also, varies materially in the different species.  The right-whale is supposed to live on what may be termed marine insects, or the molluscae of the ocean, which it is thought he obtains by running in the parts of the sea where they most abound; arresting them by the hairy fibres which grow on the laminae of bone that, in a measure, compose his jaws, having no teeth.  The spermaceti, however, is furnished with regular grinders, which he knows very well how to use, and with which he often crushes the boats of those who come against him.  Thus, the whalers have but one danger to guard against, in assaulting the common animal, viz., his flukes, or tail; while the spermaceti, in addition to the last means of defence, possesses those of his teeth or jaws.  As this latter animal is quite one-third head, he has no very great dissemblance to the alligator in this particular.

By means of this brief description of the physical formation and habits of the animals of which our adventurers were in pursuit, the general reader will be the better able to understand that which it is our duty now to record.  After rowing the distance named, the boats became a little separated, in their search for the fish.  That spouts had been seen, there was no doubt; though, since quitting the schooners, no one in the boats had got a further view of the fish,—­if fish, animals with respiratory organs can be termed.  A good look-out for spouts had been kept by each man at the steering-oars, but entirely without success.  Had not Roswell and Daggett, previously to leaving their respective vessels, seen the signs of whales with their own eyes, it is probable that they would now have both been disposed to return, calling in their mates.  But, being certain that the creatures they sought were not far distant, they continued slowly to separate, each straining his eyes in quest of his game, as his boat rose on the summit of the rolling and tossing waves.  Water in motion was all around them; and the schooners working slowly up against the trades, were all that rewarded their vigilant and anxious looks.  Twenty times did each fancy that he saw the dark back, or head, of the object he sought; but as often did it prove to be no more than a lipper of water, rolling up into a hummock ere it broke, or melted away again into the general mass of the unquiet ocean.  When it is remembered that the surface of the sea is tossed into a thousand fantastic outlines, as its waves roll along, it can readily be imagined how such mistakes could arise.