"But they are built differently. They have a handy way of doing
up a lot of breathing all at once, and then not having to think any
more about it for a while. You can readily see what a convenience that
might be to them.
"When they got back to the surface, they lay comfortably rocking among
the green swells, while they both blew all the used-up air and steam
out of their lungs. The feathery little jet of the calf rose gravely
beside his mother's high and graceful spout. The calf, always hungry,
because he had such a lot of growing to do and was in such a hurry to
do it, fell at once to nursing again, while the mother lay basking half
asleep. Overhead, some great white gulls flapped and screamed against
the sharp blue, now and then dropping with a splash to snatch some fish
from the transparent slope of a wave. A couple of hundred yards away
three seals lay basking on an ice-floe, and in the distance could be
seen other whales spouting. So the mother knew that she and her baby
were not alone in these wide bright spaces of sea and sky.
"As a general rule, the great whale was apt to stay not more than two
or three minutes at the surface, but to spend most of her time in the
moderate depths.
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