[Fighting the Whales by R. M. Ballantyne]@TWC D-Link book
Fighting the Whales

CHAPTER VI
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CHAPTER VI.
THE WHALE--FIGHTING BULLS, ETC.
As the reader may, perhaps, have been asking a few questions about the whale in his own mind, I shall try to answer them, by telling a few things concerning that creature which, I think, are worth knowing.
In the first place, the whale is not a fish! I have applied that name to it, no doubt, because it is the custom to do so; but there are great differences between the whales and the fishes.

The mere fact that the whale lives in water is not sufficient to prove it to be a fish.

The frog lives very much in water--he is born in the water, and, when very young, he lives in it altogether--would die, in fact, if he were taken out of it; yet a frog is not a fish.
The following are some of the differences existing between a whale and a fish:--The whale is a warm-blooded animal; the fish is cold-blooded.
The whale brings forth its young alive; while most fishes lay eggs or spawn.

Moreover, the fish lives entirely under water, but the whale cannot do so.

He breathes air through enormous lungs, not gills.


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