These huge animals are very dainty eaters

Press, 4 December 1979, Page 18

These huge animals are very dainty eaters

The whalebone whales are huge animals (the blue whale of the Antarctic seas is the largest animal in the world), but they are dainty eaters, and they feed on small fish, often the seafoods that are expensive delicacies to us. These gigantic nibbiers consume vast quantities of small fry. It is said that their stomachs will hold a ton of food. Whalebone whales have no teeth. Instead they have baleen plates that hang from the roofs of their mouths. Baleen is a flexible type of bone sub-

Whales swim through the water with their mouths wide open when they are feeding. The water rushes in carrying the small fish which become trapped in the baleen as it rushes out again. The whales swallow, rather than eat, the delectable morsels the sea leaves behind in their throats.

In one of the wellknown ‘‘Just So” stories, Rudyard Kipling, an early twentieth century writer of children’s stories, tells how the whale got his throat. It is a story about a

whale, a fish and a sailor. The whale roamed the seas with his mouth wide open all the time, because he was always hungry. He was like a bottomless pit, and soon all the fish in the seas had been swallowed — all except one. This unusual and intelligent fish had found a safe place behind the whales right ear.

Without food the whale soon became upset. His tail swished angrily, making the sea foam and froth for miles around. The little fish nearly lost its safe position. It called to the whale to stop, to hear where he could find a new and delicious food. The whale was most willing to listen, and this is what the fish told him: On a raft some distance away there was a shipwrecked sailor wearing blue canvas trousers. He had a pair of suspenders (or braces) and a jackknife. The last two items may sound trivial, but they are very important to the story of the whale and the sailor, for widely different reasons. Of course the whale wasted no time in making for the raft that had food, and on reaching it, he

swallowed the sailor, the pair of suspenders, the jackknife and the raft.

At first the whale was well pleased with this new and satisfying food. He was about to set out in search of more when he began to feel violent movements in the deep pit of his stomach. He heard roars, louder and more frightening than the stormiest seas. His body began to heave and jump as if it were bewitched (the unhappy whale had never had hiccoughs). He called to the sailor to come out. but the prisoner refused to move until he was taken home. The whale was in no state to make a long journey. But what could he do? His prisoner was his master, and his only hope of relief was to do as he said.

Rocked by hiccoughs, and hampered by a nabging and thumping inside him, the unfortunate whale began the long swim to rid himself of what had become an unwanted burden. The sailor was used to rough seas, and to working in wet discomfort. He was very busy.

At the end of the Journey he walked out of the whale's mouth still wearing the blue canvas trousers and carrying the jackknife. But where were the suspenders and the raft?

This hardy seafarer had worked his passage home. While the whale struggled outside, he had used his jackknife to cut the raft into strips, arranging them in a criss-cross pattern secured with pieces of the suspenders. He had wedged this wooden grating into the whale's throat. As he set foot on his native soil the sailor spoke to the whale, saying, “By means of a grating I have stopped your ’ating.”

He did not even say “thank you for bringing me home.”

Rudyard Kipling wrote a number of amusingly incredible “Just So” stories. Some others are: How the Camel Got his Hump. How the Leopard got his Spots. The Crab that played with the Sea. The Cat that Walked by Himself.