The tail of the whale divides into two flukes, the distance across which is fifteen feet. This great weapon is used for a number of purposes—for motion, as a weapon when pursued by enemies, for play, called lobtailing, whereby he throws his tail high in the air and then, lowering it, smites the sea with terrific force, and for peaking, which is the tossing of the entire flukes with a part of the body in the air before plunging below. When the whale so plunges below he is said to “sound,” and, as he breathes like any other animal, he must take in for his dive a great supply of air; otherwise he would drown. This great creature can hold his breath for a long time, and, when he comes up, the air in his lungs is heated, and, hence, as it is expelled into the cooler air, it condenses and forms a vapor. This is what one sees when the whale spouts. If this vapor touches the human skin, it stings. Now the spout of the sperm whale is rather a poor one. It doesn’t go straight up, but goes forward for a short distance. The blowings are repeated sixty or seventy times at a rising, and then the whale goes down again, and remains below for fifteen to forty-five minutes, and occasionally for an hour or more. Now what does the cachalot do when he is under water? It is believed that he goes to a great depth in search of cuttlefish or squid. Some of these dead cuttlefish thrown up on the shore are known to be forty to fifty feet in length, and, while some say that live cuttlefish of great size have been seen on the surface of the ocean, the statement may well be doubted. But it is known that fierce battles take place under water between them and the whales; and it is a fact that dead whales have been found floating with their bodies badly cut and bruised. But the cachalot is generally the victor. The cuttlefish is not the only food. It is a fact that pieces of sharks have been found in the stomachs of sperm whales. The most curious thing about the sperm whale is that in rare cases it produces ambergris, often worth its weight in gold; and this, it is said, is due to the cuttlefish. This material is solid, is generally ash-colored, is lighter than water and is fragrant when heated. It is a growth in the intestines of the sperm whale, produced, it is thought, by indigestion caused by the whale not being able to assimilate beaks and other pieces of cuttlefish so often found in the ambergris. Ambergris is generally found in cutting up the whale. Its chief use is in manufacturing perfume. It is not the perfume itself, but the substance which prevents evaporation.