📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 67
1BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER V. (Razor Back).--Of this whale little is known but his name. I have seen him at a distance off
2Cape Horn. Of a retiring nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers. Though no coward, he has never yet shown any
3part of him but his back, which rises in a long sharp ridge. Let him go. I know little more of him, nor does anybody
4else. BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER VI. (Sulphur Bottom).--Another retiring gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got
5by scraping along the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom seen; at least I have never seen
6him except in the remoter southern seas, and then always at too great a distance to study his countenance. He is never
7chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line. Prodigies are told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say nothing
8more that is true of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer. Thus ends BOOK I. (Folio), and now begins BOOK II. (Octavo).
9OCTAVOES.*--These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among which present may be numbered:--I., the Grampus; II.,
10the Black Fish; III., the Narwhale; IV., the Thrasher; V., the Killer. *Why this book of whales is not denominated the
11Quarto is very plain. Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of the former order,
12nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them in figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume in its dimensioned
13form does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume does. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER I.
14(Grampus).--Though this fish, whose loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb to landsmen, is
15so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not popularly classed among whales. But possessing all the grand
16distinctive features of the leviathan, most naturalists have recognised him for one. He is of moderate octavo size,
17varying from fifteen to twenty-five feet in length, and of corresponding dimensions round the waist. He swims in herds;
18he is never regularly hunted, though his oil is considerable in quantity, and pretty good for light. By some fishermen
19his approach is regarded as premonitory of the advance of the great sperm whale. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER II. (Black
20Fish).--I give the popular fishermen's names for all these fish, for generally they are the best. Where any name happens
21to be vague or inexpressive, I shall say so, and suggest another. I do so now, touching the Black Fish, so-called,
22because blackness is the rule among almost all whales. So, call him the Hyena Whale, if you please. His voracity is well
23known, and from the circumstance that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards, he carries an everlasting
24Mephistophelean grin on his face. This whale averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. He is found in almost all
25latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal hooked fin in swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose.
26When not more profitably employed, the sperm whale hunters sometimes capture the Hyena whale, to keep up the supply of
27cheap oil for domestic employment--as some frugal housekeepers, in the absence of company, and quite alone by
28themselves, burn unsavory tallow instead of odorous wax. Though their blubber is very thin, some of these whales will
29yield you upwards of thirty gallons of oil. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER III. (Narwhale), that is, Nostril whale.--Another
30instance of a curiously named whale, so named I suppose from his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a peaked
31nose. The creature is some sixteen feet in length, while its horn averages five feet, though some exceed ten, and even
32attain to fifteen feet. Strictly speaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk, growing out from the jaw in a line a
33little depressed from the horizontal. But it is only found on the sinister side, which has an ill effect, giving its
34owner something analogous to the aspect of a clumsy left-handed man. What precise purpose this ivory horn or lance
35answers, it would be hard to say. It does not seem to be used like the blade of the sword-fish and bill-fish; though
36some sailors tell me that the Narwhale employs it for a rake in turning over the bottom of the sea for food. Charley
37Coffin said it was used for an ice-piercer; for the Narwhale, rising to the surface of the Polar Sea, and finding it
38sheeted with ice, thrusts his horn up, and so breaks through. But you cannot prove either of these surmises to be
39correct. My own opinion is, that however this one-sided horn may really be used by the Narwhale--however that may be--it
40would certainly be very convenient to him for a folder in reading pamphlets. The Narwhale I have heard called the Tusked
41whale, the Horned whale, and the Unicorn whale. He is certainly a curious example of the Unicornism to be found in
42almost every kingdom of animated nature. From certain cloistered old authors I have gathered that this same
43sea-unicorn's horn was in ancient days regarded as the great antidote against poison, and as such, preparations of it
44brought immense prices. It was also distilled to a volatile salts for fainting ladies, the same way that the horns of
45the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn. Originally it was in itself accounted an object of great curiosity. Black
46Letter tells me that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that voyage, when Queen Bess did gallantly wave her
47jewelled hand to him from a window of Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the Thames; "when Sir Martin
48returned from that voyage," saith Black Letter, "on bended knees he presented to her highness a prodigious long horn of
49the Narwhale, which for a long period after hung in the castle at Windsor." An Irish author avers that the Earl of
50Leicester, on bended knees, did likewise present to her highness another horn, pertaining to a land beast of the unicorn
51nature. The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being of a milk-white ground colour, dotted with round
52and oblong spots of black. His oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there is little of it, and he is seldom hunted.
53He is mostly found in the circumpolar seas. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER IV. (Killer).--Of this whale little is precisely
54known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the professed naturalist. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I
55should say that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savage--a sort of Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the
56great Folio whales by the lip, and hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death. The Killer is
57never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has. Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on
58the ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included. BOOK II.
59(Octavo), CHAPTER V. (Thrasher).--This gentleman is famous for his tail, which he uses for a ferule in thrashing his
60foes. He mounts the Folio whale's back, and as he swims, he works his passage by flogging him; as some schoolmasters get
61along in the world by a similar process. Still less is known of the Thrasher than of the Killer. Both are outlaws, even
62in the lawless seas. Thus ends BOOK II. (Octavo), and begins BOOK III. (Duodecimo). DUODECIMOES.--These include the
63smaller whales. I. The Huzza Porpoise. II. The Algerine Porpoise. III. The Mealy-mouthed Porpoise. To those who have not
64chanced specially to study the subject, it may possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding four or five
65feet should be marshalled among WHALES--a word, which, in the popular sense, always conveys an idea of hugeness. But the
66creatures set down above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales, by the terms of my definition of what a whale is--i.e. a
67spouting fish, with a horizontal tail.
🎉 全部完成！共 67 行