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.

Now, however, with her big baby to nurse, she would often linger basking at the surface till her appetite drove her to activity.