I shall never forget the breathless interest with which I developed the negative exposed when the humpback whale came up beneath the ship during the trip described in the previous chapter. I had had no time to focus the camera, and really expected a blurred picture, but still there was just a chance that it might be good. The image appearing on the plate slowly assumed form and I saw that it was a picture of the great body partly hidden beneath the ship. No one but a naturalist can ever know what it meant to get that photograph and how impatiently I waited until it could be taken from the hypo bath and examined. I found that the plate had been exposed just after the spout had been delivered and while the animal was drawing in its breath. The great nostrils were widely dilated and _protruded far above the level of the head_. This is an excellent illustration of what an important part the camera plays in natural history study, for often a photograph will show with accuracy many things which the eye does not record. When a whale rises so close to the ship that one can almost touch its huge body, the few seconds of its appearance are so full of excitement that it is well-nigh impossible to study details—at least so I have found. During spouting, and while drawing in the breath, the rush of air through the pipe-like nostrils produces a loud, metallic, whistling sound which, in the larger whales, can be heard for a distance of a mile or more. Since cetaceans have no vocal organs it is probable that this is the sound which is so often mistaken for their voice in the statements that whales have “roared,” or “bellowed like a bull.” To me it always seems as though a whale _ought_ to have a voice of proportions equal to the animal’s bulk. I have never quite recovered from the feeling I had when I first saw a big humpback rise a few feet from the ship. The animal appeared so enormous that if it had uttered a terrifying roar it would have seemed quite the natural and proper thing. The respiratory sounds differ with each cetacean; I have often been near humpbacks and finbacks which were feeding together, and could always distinguish the latter species by the sharper and more metallic quality of the spout. This is probably due to the fact that the finback, since it is a larger whale, blows with greater force than does the humpback. The white porpoise (_Delphinapterus leucas_) of the North, makes a most characteristic respiratory noise. It is a sharp “putt” much resembling the exhaust of a small gasoline engine and can be heard for a considerable distance. In early June of 1909, while hunting white porpoises in the St. Lawrence River, a heavy fog dropped on us and for several hours we could only wait for it to lift. All about were white porpoises, probably several hundred, and the sharp “putt, putt” of their spouts came from every direction, sounding like a squadron of gasoline launches.