being caught part of experience, without with little of the history being known. That a whale is a mammal, not a fish has been known since the time of Aristotle; however, the great systematist Whitman classed them as such. Although few people realize that all the air held in the water, it yet breathers air by means of lungs & must carry to the surface to a dischage the air from its lungs & take a fresh inspiration; & any land mammal would do just the same. The when an whale comes to the surface often its first act is to discharge the air from its lungs & take a fresh inspiration as a land mammal would do under like circumstances. This air is saturated with water vapour at a high temperature, & when it strikes the cold upper air, sudden- ly condenses forming a column of steam or spray which is called the spout. Thust it is that the mammal gives that the animal rarely blows water from out its nostrils.