The men on board were greatly interested in my camera and anxious that opportunities might be given for pictures. For two hours, with the Chief Engineer and the Mate, I sat aft on the great coil of towing line, used only in very heavy weather, listening to stories of the idiosyncrasies of whales, especially humpbacks. Their firm conviction was that one—never could guess what a “hump” was going to do—except that it would be exactly what was least expected. The Engineer had just finished telling about a big fellow that a few days before had come up in front of the ship and swam towards it with his enormous mouth wide open, when the man in the barrel called down, “Whales on the port bow!” I jumped as though a bomb had been exploded and grabbed my camera. The other men took things rather quietly, for the whales were still a long way off. The Captain tried to show me the spouts but it was several minutes before I could distinguish the white columns of vapor shooting up every few seconds. [Illustration: Model of a humpback whale in the American Museum of Natural History. The model was prepared by Mr. James L. Clark, under the direction of Dr. F. A. Lucas. ] There were three of them—all humpbacks. On the instant, the dark bodies slowly rounded into view and three huge, propeller-like tails were smoothly lifted out of the water, elevated vertically to the surface, and again drawn below. It is impossible to describe the ease and beauty of the dive. To look at the heavy body and long, ungainly flippers of a humpback one would hardly suspect that there could be grace in any movement, and yet the enormous animals slide under the surface as smoothly as a water bird. [Illustration: “The man in the barrel called down, ‘Whales on the port bow!’” ] When the flukes came out, the Captain rang for half speed, for the whales would probably be down several minutes. Turning the wheel over to the Mate, he went forward to the gun, pushed up the spring which cocked it, and waited, alert, for the animals to rise. I had descended with him from the bridge and stood just behind the gun platform. The ship, her engines stopped, was rolling about on the mirror-like patches of water left by the whales as they went down. After ten minutes of waiting three silvery clouds suddenly shot upward a quarter of a mile away. Instantly the engine signal rang and the ship swung about, plowing through the water at full speed until the whales sounded. For two hours this kept on. Each time when we were almost within range the big fellows would raise themselves a little higher, arch their backs, and turn downward in a beautiful dive, waving their huge flukes as though in derision.