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Whale   Listen
noun
Whale  n.  (Zool.) Any aquatic mammal of the order Cetacea, especially any one of the large species, some of which become nearly one hundred feet long. Whales are hunted chiefly for their oil and baleen, or whalebone. Note: The existing whales are divided into two groups: the toothed whales (Odontocete), including those that have teeth, as the cachalot, or sperm whale (see Sperm whale); and the baleen, or whalebone, whales (Mysticete), comprising those that are destitute of teeth, but have plates of baleen hanging from the upper jaw, as the right whales. The most important species of whalebone whales are the bowhead, or Greenland, whale, the Biscay whale, the Antarctic whale, the gray whale (see under Gray), the humpback, the finback, and the rorqual.
Whale bird. (Zool.)
(a)
Any one of several species of large Antarctic petrels which follow whaling vessels, to feed on the blubber and floating oil; especially, Prion turtur (called also blue petrel), and Pseudoprion desolatus.
(b)
The turnstone; so called because it lives on the carcasses of whales. (Canada)
Whale fin (Com.), whalebone.
Whale fishery, the fishing for, or occupation of taking, whales.
Whale louse (Zool.), any one of several species of degraded amphipod crustaceans belonging to the genus Cyamus, especially Cyamus ceti. They are parasitic on various cetaceans.
Whale's bone, ivory. (Obs.)
Whale shark. (Zool.)
(a)
The basking, or liver, shark.
(b)
A very large harmless shark (Rhinodon typicus) native of the Indian Ocean. It sometimes becomes sixty feet long.
Whale shot, the name formerly given to spermaceti.
Whale's tongue (Zool.), a balanoglossus.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Whale" Quotes from Famous Books



... Maria Rose with motherly tenderness, she was the playmate and constant companion of Miss Maria now passing the bridge of her teens; yet Miss Margaret could not tolerate seeing her leaning on the rails of the Germania, she appeared presumably afraid that some terrible whale might swallow her little Maria whom she loved as much as a mother could love her own child, a pleasure which she never had, to know and to love a child of her own, and Maria appeared to appreciate the ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden

... breaking down, but young Angus sneaked in and partook of a meagre lunch with me. He was highly vexed with his pa. 'He's nothing but a scoundrelly old liar,' he says to me, 'saying that he gives me but a pittance. He's always given me a whale of an allowance. Why, actually, I've more than once had money left over at the end of the quarter. And now his talk about saving money! I tell you he has some other reason than money for breaking the mater's heart.' The boy looked very shrewd as ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... treated him gratis to the look of horror and fury, she now moved towards him with the sinuous walk and spoke in the tone which she seldom permitted herself to use before the curtain of act two, unless there was a whale of a situation that called ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... that we occupied was known as "Hog's Back." On our left was "Duntroon" (named after the Australian West Point). In front of us was a peculiarly shaped hill called "Whale Back." We did not live in the trenches themselves, as they were continually falling in and had to be cleaned out again practically every day. Our supplies were brought within about three miles on a light tramway. Sometimes we went short, ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... shows a like inferiority. Mohammed also adulterates his work with many Christian legends, derived probably from the apocryphal gospel of St. Barnabas; he mixes with many of his own inventions the scripture account of the temptation of Adam, the Deluge, Jonah and the whale, enriching the whole with stories like the later Night Entertainments of his country, the seven sleepers, Gog and Magog, and all the wonders of ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... thousand feet in height, and the mountainous interior rises to three thousand. The sea is far more restless than upon our coast, the surf habitually higher; and there is such a depth of water in many places around the shore, that, on one occasion, a whale-ship, drawn too near by the current, broke her mainyard against the cliff, without ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... to the man who loves historical things, the cane presented to General Stark when he was a major, for valiant conduct in defence of Fort William Henry, will be of especial interest. This cane is made from the bone of a whale and is headed with ivory. On the mantelpiece stands another very interesting souvenir, a bronze statuette of Napoleon I., which Lafayette brought with him from France ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... to protect all species of whales from overfishing; to establish a system of international regulation for the whale fisheries to ensure proper conservation and development of whale stocks; and to safeguard for future generations the great natural resources represented by ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... opinions of many aged persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads. The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly set with glittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... the rays from the circle to get to the centre. Consequently Sir Willoughby put Miss Middleton on one or other of these converging lines from time to time. Us, too, he drags into the deeps, but when we have harpooned a whale and are attached to the rope, down we must go; the miracle is to see ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Jonah downed the whale And made no bones of it. The tale That Ananias told He swore was true. He had no doubt That Daniel laid the lions out. In short, he had all holiness, All meekness and all lowliness, And was ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... usual, those in the open, in front of our box, were drenched with rain, as indeed were many of the players on the stage. I had "come to scoff, but remained to pray.'' There was one scene where I had expected a laugh— namely, where Jonah walks up out of the whale's belly. But when it arrived we all remained solemn. It was really impressive. We sat there from nine in the morning until half-past twelve, and then from half-past one until about half-past four, under a spell which banished fatigue. The main point was that ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... ten one-hundred-dollar bills which I suppose went down with him in the Lusitania and the Arabic, and bobbed up again. I couldn't help seeing that when they came out they left his wallet as empty as the whale after it had disgorged Jonah. I did hope he had pennies in other pockets, or that his salary from Mrs. Shuster was going to begin ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... by slow-made changes, the early mammals pass into the higher. Out of one original part are made limbs as different as the feet of the horse, the wing of a bat, the paddle of a whale, and the hand of man. So with all the parts of the body the forms change to meet the different uses ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... eye; and Micromegas took up one of 2,005 feet in diameter. They were excellent; but neither one of them could see anything right away and had to adjust them. Finally the Saturnian saw something elusive that moved in the shallow waters of the Baltic sea; it was a whale. He carefully picked it up with his little finger and, resting it on the nail of his thumb, showed it to the Sirian, who began laughing for a second time at the ludicrously small scale of the things on our planet. The Saturnian, persuaded ...
— Romans — Volume 3: Micromegas • Voltaire

... year 1611 the Muscovy Company despatched two vessels to commence the whale fishery. On board these vessels went three Biscayans who were accustomed to the business. Having set sail late, they had only time to catch one whale, but from it were made seven tons of oil. The rest of the crew having observed the manner in which the Biscayans performed ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... an errand, and he said he saw you and Mr. Kendall goin' down street together just as he was comin' along. He hollered at you, but you didn't hear him. 'Cordin' to Issachar's tell, you was luggin' a basket with Jonah's whale in it, or ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... in my hand is a stearine candle, made of stearine from tallow. Then here is a sperm candle, which comes from the purified oil of the spermaceti whale. Here, also, are yellow beeswax and refined beeswax from which candles are made. Here, too, is that curious substance called paraffin, and some paraffin candles made of paraffin obtained from the bogs of Ireland. I have here also a substance ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... destroyed by Southern privateers, given to the flames, or sunk beneath the waters. The shipping of the United States was reduced one-half, and the commercial flag of the Union fluttered with terror in every wind that blew, from the whale fisheries of the ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... shore an enormous whale showed a back so broad and motionless that it looked like an island. Alcina had fixed her eyes on me, and planned to get me into her power. Addressing us, she said: 'This is the hour when the prettiest ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... vigor of youth. Two horses were shot under Arnold, and he received the fire of a whole platoon at a distance of thirty yards, yet escaped uninjured.—(2.) Colonel Meigs avenged the burning of Danbury. With about two hundred men he crossed in whale-boats to Long Island, destroyed a great quantity of stores, including twelve ships at Sag Harbor, took ninety prisoners, and escaped without losing a man. —(3.) The Americans were extremely anxious to ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... extremely ingenious experimental arrangement, Helmholtz has determined the velocity of this nervous transmission, and finds it to be about eighty feet a second, or less than one-thirteenth of the velocity of sound in air. If therefore, a whale forty feet long were wounded in the tail, it would not be conscious of the injury till half a second after the wound had been inflicted. [Footnote: A most admirable lecture on the velocity of nervous transmission has been published by Dr. Du Bois Reymond in the 'Proceedings ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... to the whale. Let somebody say in so many words that the Duchess did so and so. It was very wicked no doubt; but they can't kill me,—nor yet dismiss me. And I won't resign. In point of fact I shan't be a ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... saw something werry like a whale, but a good deal like a first-rate bad "Sell!" The lapse of a few days was quite sufficient to convince the publisher that he had been taken in and done for—regularly picked up and done for,—upon the most approved and scientific principles. ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... ears, making his torture their sport. At length being weary thereof, they shot him through the head, and sunk his vessel. Some days after, he took a fishing boat off of Black Island, and only cut off the master's head; but next day taking two Whale Boats near Rhode Island, he brutally killed one of the masters and cut off the ears of the other. From hence he went to Newfoundland, where he took 23 French Vessels, and mann'd one of them of 22 Guns with pirates; ...
— Pirates • Anonymous

... manufacturing and service industries in the last decade, and new developments in software production, biotechnology, and financial services are taking place. The tourism sector is also expanding, with the recent trends in ecotourism and whale watching. Growth had been remarkably steady in 1996-2001 at 3%-5%, but could not be sustained in 2002 in an environment of global recession. Growth resumed in 2003, and inflation dropped back ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... in the air forty feet above us, covered with fore-cabin passengers. I warped the lady and the children upward—Heaven knows how; for the sea was breaking over us very sharp—till we were at the mainmast stump, and holding on by the wreck of it. I felt the ship stagger as if a whale had struck her, and heard a roar and a swish behind me, and looked back—just in time to see mizen, and poop, and all the poor women and children in it, go bodily, as if they had been shaved off with a knife. I suppose ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... in a moment uncoil'd, They rose, and again disappear'd in the dark, And down in the billows which over them boil'd I saw a behemoth contend with a shark; The sounds of their hideous duel awaken The black-bellied whale, and the slumbering craken. ...
— The Song of Deirdra, King Byrge and his Brothers - and Other Ballads • Anonymous

... date 1489; (3) lion versus griffin; (4) griffin devouring human leg; (5) owl; (6) mermaid with mirror and hair-brush; (7) two pigs dancing to bagpipe played by a third; (8) Jonah thrown to the whale; (9) man wheeling another who holds a reed and a bag; (10) fox caught carrying off goose by dog and by woman with distaff; (11) winged animal; (12) hart, gorged and chained; (13) pelican feeding young; (14) Jonah emerging from the whale; (15) Samson carrying the gates; ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett

... where all the rivers meet: In their waters crystalline Bathe him clean of weed and brine, Comb him, wipe his pretty eyes, Then to Zeus who rules the skies Call, assembling in a round Every fish that can be found— Whale and merman, lobster, cod, Tittlebat and demigod:— "Lord of all the Universe, We, thy finny pensioners, Sue thee for the little life Hurried hence by Hades' wife. Sooner than she call him her dog, Change, O change him to a mer-dog! ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... 'bout de Yankees, though I does 'members de Ku Klux. They visit pappy's house after freedom, shake him, and threaten dat, if him didn't quit listenin' to them low-down white trash scalawags and carpetbaggers, they would come back and whale de devil out of him, and dat de Klan would take notice of him on ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... belonged to a period that I reckoned was full eighty years dead and gone. The other—the half of her I should say—showed a much bluffer bow, and had been a vessel of some burthen. But the wonder was the object on which they rested. This was no more nor less than the body of a great dead whale! ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... it is a weary, dreary march. The nearest water is forty miles away. Toiling through sand ankle-deep, the traveler plods across the edge of the plains, through troughlike valleys, and up the wooded slope of the Mesa de los Jumanos. A mile to the south a whale-back ridge springs ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller

... They winked at me. The way grew so narrow that we had to walk one by one through lines of wall perforated with holes for dead bodies. Once in a while we would come to a small chapel, for miserable variety's sake, and be told to admire some very old, very wretched painting. Jonah and the whale were represented in a double-barreled miracle picture. Not only was the whale about to swallow Jonah, but he was only as large as a good-sized brook trout, while Jonah towered away above him like a Goliath. I found ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason

... our minds the great similarity of structure, which obtains in all the warm-blooded animals, as well quadrupeds, birds, and amphibious animals, as in mankind; from the mouse and bat to the elephant and whale; one is led to conclude, that they have alike been produced from a similar living filament. In some this filament in its advance to maturity has acquired hands and fingers, with a fine sense of touch, as ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... the harpooners belonging to the whale fishery were exercising themselves in darting their harpoons, most of whom were drunk. One of them, Herman Rogaar by name, a hero among these people, for his dexterity with his snickasnee, came up, and passed some ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... as a fact, that the sperm whale, alarmed at the untiring rigor of his assailants, has almost disappeared from the navigable waters, retreating to the fastnesses of the Frozen Ocean, where he is still pursued, although at the greatest peril, by the dauntless New Bedford, Nantucket, and Vineyard whalemen, who, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... the Grand Army man. "I kin hear him howlin' yet, when he was a big feller in long pants and his mother used to whale him with a rawhide in the barn for lettin' the cows git foundered in the cornfield when he was drivin' 'em home from pasture. He killed a cow of mine that-a-way onct—a pure Jersey and the best milker I had, an' the ole man had to put up for ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... He is worth no more than the carcase of a whale that has been stripped of its blubber. I say, Miles, there would be no need of the windlass to heave the ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... matter of fact, the gardener—that is to say, the stocky, brown-faced man in shirt sleeves and corduroy trousers who was frowning into a can of whale-oil solution—was the Earl of Marshmoreton, and there were two reasons for his gloom. He hated to be interrupted while working, and, furthermore, Lady Caroline Byng always got on his nerves, and never more so than when, as now, she speculated on the possibility ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... articles of English manufacture; the Red Indians of North and South America, as they come from their hunting grounds in the deep wilderness, to sell their spoils to English or American fur companies; the swarthy inhabitants of the ocean islands, as they run to the beach to greet the American whale ship or the English East Indiaman, bringing yams and curious ware to sell to the pale-faced foreigners; all these carry back to their kind and kindred rude lessons in the English language—the meaning of home and household words of the strong, old Saxon tongue, each of which links its possessor ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt

... the time arrived, was to procure some mode of getting over. A whale-boat was at length found, into which the adventurers got, disguised as fishermen. They soon arrived at Long Island and proceeded to the residence of ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... the middle," says the whale, though Tom sees nothing but a glittering white peak like an iceberg. "That's Mother Carey," spouts the whale, "as you will find if you get to her. There she sits making old beasts into new all the ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... camp, set off at a run as soon as he got safely out of sight; and, when he was sure of seclusion in distance, he would "cut loose"— yell and laugh and caper like a true madman; tear off his superfluous clothes, splash and thresh in some lonely lake like a baby whale that has not yet had the primary lessons in how to behave. When he returned to camp, subdued in manner, like a bad boy after recess, he was, in fact, not one bit subdued beneath the surface, but the more fractious for his outburst. Each ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... no could live there then. Much snow and ice, big rocks, and—what you call—Fur Trees. How that? Fur no grow on tree in Japan. Strange ting. Muchee animal they say—what you call—walrus there. Perhaps Whale. That makee me to tink of Mr. FEESH. He is deep, that FEESH. So deep I no can understand hims. They tella me much other peoples no can understand hims too. He makee much policee with his Foreign Relations. I ask a much people to tella me who are ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various

... "and a whale swallow him, and how's he going to sit under a pumpkin vine when he's inside ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun

... permanent facts of the universe are NOT chance. It is not chance that the heavenly bodies swing clear of each other, that the seed is furnished with the apparatus which will drift it to a congenial soil, that the creature is adapted to its environment. Show me a whale with its great-coat of fat, and I want no further proof of design. But logically, as it seems to me, ALL must be design, or all must be chance. I do not see how one can slash a line right across the universe, and say that all to ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... imagine it! It is most unfortunate for me that I happen to be one of Bruce-Errington's oldest friends—otherwise I might have passed him over in some way—as it is I can't. But fancy having to meet a great coarse peasant woman, who, I'm certain, will only be able to talk about fish and whale-oil! It is really ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... nothing but one continued succession of icebergs and floes inseparably united. Despairing, therefore, of any release, until the cold weather should break up, I made all arrangements for remaining during the winter. Our provisions were very short, and we were obliged to make use of the whale oil, but it soon produced such dysenteries, that it was no ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... barnacles; long skeins of sea-grass knotted themselves in her gaping seams; myriads of fish darted in and out among the clinging weeds, sporting gleefully; schools of porpoises leaped about them, lashing the sea into foam; sometimes a whale blew his long breath close under them. Everywhere was the stir of jubilant life—everywhere but under the tattered awning stretched in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... sagged, and she was an old woman, who smoked her pipe, and taught her children that rudimentary code of virtue to which the mountains subscribe. She believed in a brimstone hell and a personal devil. She believed that the whale had swallowed Jonah, but she thought that "Thou shalt not kill" was an edict enunciated by the Almighty with ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... that, by the time the captain's party was ready to sail, there were several other whaling vessels on the point of starting. They were all successful, and very soon a large number of ships was engaged in whale fishing. Now, as Hobart Town was the nearest port, the whalers found that it saved time to go thither with their oil, and to buy their provisions and refit their ships there; so that the trade and importance of the little city received a very ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland

... is to say, there is a large series of skulls of various mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes, and, again, leg and arm bones, and their parts, arranged side by side; hence you may compare the fore-limb of the human subject with that of a monkey, a lion, a whale, a marsupial, a bird, a reptile, or a fish. [Footnote: Of course, all this may be seen in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, or at Oxford or Cambridge, etc, but these are special institutions, and I am merely taking provincial general museums ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... with amazing swiftness, and it looked as though Teddy's prediction was going to be realized. Certainly, so far, they were having, in Fred's words, "a whale of a time." ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport

... same time whistled for the information of those on deck. Bitts was not so obliging as to lean against a mast, or anything else, and the conspirators were compelled to take him flying. Phillips had prepared, with a piece of whale line, a kind of lasso, and, stepping up behind him, threw it over his head, drawing it tight around his neck, before the astonished carpenter suspected any mischief. The end of the whale line was then hooked to the clewline of the fore-square-sail, which had been detached ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... expressions and English and American slang, and Beach de Mar, or native English,—the very trades and hopes and fears of the characters, are all novel, and may be found unwelcome to that great, hulking, bullering whale, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... animal, or, with the decomposed dead animal, may form a part of the soil. If the animal should fall into the sea he may become food for fishes, and our atom of nitrogen may form a part of a fish. That fish may be eaten by a larger one, or at death may become food for the whale, through the marine insect, on which it feeds. After the abstraction of the oil from the whale, the nitrogen may, by the putrefaction of his remains, be united to hydrogen, form ammonia, and escape into the atmosphere. From here it may be brought to the soil by rains, ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... Crag; two-thirds of them being characteristic of high latitudes. Among these are Cardium Groenlandicum, Leda limatula, Tritonium carinatum, and Scalaria Groenlandica. In the upper part of the laminated clays a skeleton of a whale was found associated with casts of the characteristic shells, Nucula Cobboldiae and Tellina obliqua, already referred to as no longer inhabiting our seas, and as being extinct varieties if not species. The same shells occur in a perfect state in the ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... and there we hovered a moment until a huge wave reached up and seized us upon its crest, and then I gave the order that suddenly reversed the screening force, and let us into the ocean. Down into the trough we went, wallowing like the carcass of a dead whale, and then began the fight, with rudder and propellers, to force the Coldwater back into the teeth of the gale and drive her on and on, farther and farther ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... of which, I think, are from Pompeii; a collection of foreign stamps; shells from California, Cuba, and other places; and other things I have no room to mention. Can any one tell me how I can obtain some really good specimens of minerals? And is the whale that arrived at the New York Aquarium ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... labourers had been employed, to the very great and increasing benefit of the nation. That in return for these exports the petitioners had received from the colonies rice, indigo, tobacco, naval stores, oil, whale-fins, furs, and lately potash, with other staple commodities, besides a large balance of remittances by bills of exchange and bullion obtained by the colonists for articles of their produce, not required for the British market, and therefore ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... fifty chosen sylphs, of special note, We trust th' important charge, the petticoat: Oft have we known that sevenfold fence to fail, Though stiff with hoops, and armed with ribs of whale; Form a strong line about the silver bound, And guard the wide ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... looked at the objects placed along the wall: Roman sepulchral monuments, pieces of sarcophagi, a headless draped figure, the dorsal vertebra of a whale, and a series ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen

... river was growing rougher and ruder; ever its backbone was beginning to puiver and flounder like a whale underfoot, with its liquescent body of cold, grey, murky water bursting with increasing frequency from its shell of ice, and lapping hungrily at ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... Government was first in taking that step, and several of the leading powers of Europe immediately followed. We were influenced in this measure by the existing and prospective importance of the islands as a place of refuge and refreshment for our vessels engaged in the whale fishery, and by the consideration that they lie in the course of the great trade which must at no distant day be carried on between the western coast of North America ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore

... contrast! The means adopted by man to illuminate his home at night, stamp at once his position in the scale of civilisation. The fluid bitumen of the far East, blazing in rude vessels of baked earth; the Etruscan lamp, exquisite in form, yet ill adapted to its office; the whale, seal, or bear fat, filling the hut of the Esquimaux or Lap with odour rather than light; the huge wax candle on the glittering altar, the range of gas lamps in our streets,—all have their stories to tell. All, if they ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday

... moneys of the Government, for I was its servant, and charts of lands which the eyes of man had never dwelt upon, and messages. These messages were sealed, and protected shrewdly from the weather, and I was to deliver them to the whale-ships of the Arctic, ice-bound by the great Mackenzie. Never was there so great a river, forgetting only our own Yukon, the Mother of ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... to pitch in, and whale the whole bunch the next time they play one of their measly old tricks on us? Is that so, Paul?" ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... proceeded westwards along the southern part of Trinidad, until he arrived It the westernmost point, which he called "La punta de Arenal;" and now he beheld the gulf of Paria, which he called "La Balena" (the gulf of the whale). It was just after the rainy season, and the great rivers which flow into that gulf were causing its waters to rush with impetuosity out of the two openings [20] which lead into the open sea. The contest ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps

... engaged in whale-fishing in the arctic waters, took care that woollen and fur coverings, many sealskin moccassins, and wood for the making of sledges with which to cross the ice-fields were put on board. The amount of provisions was increased, and spirits and charcoal were added; for it might be that they ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... and thought they wanted to steal her power from her. So she changed the eldest into an eagle, which was forced to dwell in the rocky mountains, and was often seen sweeping in great circles in the sky. The second, she changed into a whale, which lived in the deep sea, and all that was seen of it was that it sometimes spouted up a great jet of water in the air. Each of them only bore his human form for only two hours daily. The third son, who was afraid she might change him into a raging wild beast a bear perhaps, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... off a coat of armour. I awoke with a sailor's song on my lips. Looking out of window at the well-known features of the heaths and dark firs, and waning oak copses, and the shadowy line of the downs stretching their long whale backs South to West, it struck me that I had been barely alive of late. Indeed one who consents to live as I had done, in a hope and a retrospect, will find his life slipping between the two, like the ships under the striding Colossus. I shook myself, braced myself, and saluted every one at the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... royal support, and for good reason. The actors in this institution were not producers of life's necessaries. To the alii belonged the land and the sea and all the useful products thereof. Even the jetsam whale-tooth and wreckage scraps of iron that ocean cast up on the shore were claimed by the lord of the land. Everything was the king's. Thus it followed of necessity that the support of the hula must in the end rest upon the alii. As in ancient Rome it was a senator or general, ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... more intelligent, but less Heavenly. The things that preachers had told about God to scare the people forty years before had come up and flowered into heresies and unbelief in their children. William actually had to quit preaching about Jonah and the whale. He had an excellent sermon on the crucial moment of Jonah's repentance, with which in the early part of his ministry he often awakened the Nineveh consciences of his people; but when he preached the same sermon twenty years later in a suburban ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... ventures to leave the tale to be its own apology, merely contenting himself with the entreaty that his little fish may be spared the rebuke that it is not a whale. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... another also representing a tapestry world, we had to perform a dreadful surgical operation on the abdomen of a Roman emperor by opening a door in the middle of it, and, as the Mariner said, the size of the next room gave the same sort of shock that Jonah must have had when he arrived in the whale. ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... lead to the next," said Shirley, and that sounded like a proverb of Jane's. (Queer how much Jane and Shirley were alike fundamentally.) "Write to Ted and we'll have one 'whale' of a time ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... he gets through; but I cal'late he thinks he's honest. And maybe he is—maybe he is. It all depends on the definition, same as I said. Sol's pious all right. I cal'late he'd sue anybody that had a doubt as to how many days Josiah went cabin passenger aboard the whale. His notion of Heaven may be a little mite hazy, although he'd probably lay consider'ble stress on the golden streets, but he's sot and definite about t'other place. Yes, siree!" he added, reflectively, "Sol is sartin there's a mighty uncomf'table Tophet, and ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... without a name, took this debt upon themselves, and the government agreed to secure them, for a certain period, the interest of six per cent. To provide for this interest, amounting to 600,000 pounds per annum, the duties upon wines, vinegar, India goods, wrought silks, tobacco, whale-fins, and some other articles, were rendered permanent. The monopoly of the trade to the South Seas was granted, and the company, being incorporated by Act of Parliament, assumed the title by which it has ever since been ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... sea around Tierra del Fuego, and at no great distance from the land, I have seen narrow lines of water of a bright red colour, from the number of crustacea, which somewhat resemble in form large prawns. The sealers call them whale-food. Whether whales feed on them I do not know; but terns, cormorants, and immense herds of great unwieldy seals derive, on some parts of the coast, their chief sustenance from these swimming crabs. Seamen invariably attribute the discoloration ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... The whale makes us more trouble; it certainly looks remarkably like a fish. But the fin of its tail is horizontal, not vertical. Its front flippers differ altogether from the corresponding fins of fish; their bones are the same as those occurring in the forelegs ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... you know, Judy. As the Book of Hiram says, 'It's neighborly to ease the check-rein of a gentled husband.' But you tell him I don't want to hear any of his ever-lastin' fool argufyin' 'bout religion. Leander 'd stop in the middle of shearin' a sheep to argue that Jonah never came out o' the whale's belly. I ain't no use for infidels, 'less they're muzzled, which ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... the case of the whale ship Good Return, seized without sufficient cause upward of forty years ago. Though she had hitherto denied her accountability, the denial was never acquiesced in by this Government, and the justice of the claim has been so earnestly ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... the past year how dull life would be. You knew how I loved a city. I still do. But the last word on earth one could apply to the life here is "dull." Nature takes care of that. I defy you to walk along any street in London and see six porpoises and a whale! That is what I saw this morning. Oh! of course you may counter by telling me that neither can I see an automobile or a fire engine, but I have you, because I can answer that I have seen them already. ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... but seldom lifting beyond autobiography, began another reminiscent narrative in "Moby Dick." In spite of his profound intellectual growth away from the cool and humorous youth who paddled the Marquesan lake with primitive beauties beside him, he seems to have meant in "The White Whale" to go back to his earlier manner, to write an accurate though highly personal account of the whaler's life, and to that end had assembled a mass of information upon the sperm whale to add to his own memories. Very literally the story begins as an autobiography; even the ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... youths, with yellow curling hair, each with a frontlet of gold upon his head, and clad in a garment of yellow satin; and they had gold clasps upon their insteps. In the hand of each of them was an ivory bow, strung with the sinews of the stag; and their arrows had their shafts of the bone of the whale, and were winged with peacock's feathers. The shafts also had golden heads. And they had daggers with blades of gold, and with hilts of the bone of the whale. And they were ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... head and shoulders of Mr. Bartholomew McGuffey, chief engineer; first, second and third assistant engineer, oiler, wiper, water-tender, and coal-passer of the Maggie, appeared. He was standing on the steel ladder that led up from his stuffy engine room and had evidently come up, like a whale, for a breath of fresh air. "The way you ruin them bonnets o' yourn sure is a scandal," Mr. McGuffey concluded. "If I had a temper as nasty as yourn I'd take soothin' syrup ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... resources. Iceland's economy has been diversifying into manufacturing and service industries in the last decade, and new developments in software production, biotechnology, and financial services are taking place. The tourism sector is also expanding, with the recent trends in ecotourism and whale-watching. Growth is likely to slow in 1999, to ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... to roll heavily and settle down. First one gun'l goes under, then the other. Then they lift and sink again, and both go under at once. All at once there's a noise like a cannon—that's the air blowing up the deck. Soon the water rushes out of the scupper-holes like a whale spouting, the vessel gives a last groan, spins round and round, and disappears, forming a vast whirlpool in the ocean, and then all is over, so that in five minutes nothing but the eye of God can see the vessel where she lies at the bottom of the sea. Do you understand now," said ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... his disposition would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to the tune of 'Greensleeves.' What tempest, I trow, threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I think the best way were to entertain him with hope, till the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease. Did ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... we took our leave of King and court, got on board, and weighed anchor. Endymion's parting gifts to me were two glass shirts, five of brass, and a suit of lupine armour, all of which, however, I afterwards left in the whale's belly; he also sent, as our escort for the first fifty miles, a thousand of ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... extended line, to which the establishment of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Columbia river gives a new feature. Although abounding in the elements of wealth, in many of these secluded regions the spark of commercial life has scarcely been awakened by foreign intercourse. Our whale-fisheries in the Pacific may also require more protection than they have hitherto done; and if we ever hope to have it in our power to obtain live alpacas from Peru as a new stock in this country, and at a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... sez a man av the Tyrone, comin' up wid his mouth bigger than iver his mother kissed ut, spittin' blood like a whale; "Captain dear," sez he, "if wan or two in the shtalls have been discommoded, the gallery enjoyed the performinces ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling

... darkened, but they disappeared before morning. Then a pelican was observed flying to the southwest, and as "these birds sleep on shore, and go to sea in the morning," the men encouraged themselves with the belief that they could not be far from land. The next day a whale could be but another indication of land; and the weeds covered the sea all about. On Saturday, they steered west by northwest, and got clear of the weeds. This change of course so far to the north, which had begun on the previous day, was occasioned ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... Carlisle relates the following anecdote:—"The most Northern races of mankind," says he, "were found to be unacquainted with the taste of sweets, and their infants made wry faces and sputtered out sugar with disgust, but the little urchins grinned with ecstasy at the sight of a bit of whale's blubber." In the same way the Arab is a date-eater and the Kaffir is a milk consumer. These facts being borne in mind, it will be desirable to ascertain whether the usual food habits obtaining in Australia are those ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... made an equally successful run. About six o'clock on the first evening a huge whale was seen approaching on the starboard bow, and as he sported in the waves, rolling and lashing them into foam, the onlookers began to fear that he might endanger the line. Their excitement became intense as the monster heaved astern, nearer and nearer to the cable, until his body ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... morning, with such additions as they thought would add point and piquancy, among the rest of the boys, and there was no end of innuendo and witticism indulged in, that caused the young gentlemen to retire in groups and laugh; and we could hear such remarks as, "Dick, there was a whale hooked on this coast this afternoon, did you know it?" Or, "I think Jack Deadeye is the most comical character in Pinafore, he's ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various

... the tortoise into the forest and kill him besides. The tortoise thereupon gets a vine-stem, ties one end around the body of the tapir, and goes to the sea, where he ties the other end to the tail of a whale. He then goes into the wood, midway between them both, and gives the vine a shake as a signal for the pulling to begin. The struggle between the whale and tapir goes on until each thinks the tortoise is the strongest of animals. Compare this with the story of the terrapin's ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris

... in the water like a whale cast up in the shallows. The lake at that point was not over four feet deep, but he did not know ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.

... three months," said he, "when on the Brazil banks we lost a boat's crew, chasing a whale after sundown; and next day lost a poor little fellow, a countryman of mine, who had never entered the boats; he fell over the side, and was jammed between the ship, and a whale, while we were cutting the fish in. ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... rabbits and pickerel, thus extending our bill of fare. Bread and pies came from the weekly baking, to say nothing of beans and codfish. Berries from the pasture and nuts from the woods were plentiful. For lights we were dependent on tallow candles or whale-oil, and soap was ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... followed the polar bird and the swimming whale to the eastern coast of Greenland. Gaunt ice-covered rocks and dark clouds hung over a valley, where dwarf willows and barberry bushes stood clothed in green. The blooming lychnis exhaled sweet odours. My light was faint, ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... whale and he's headed right this way!" yelled Jack. "He's coming on like a locomotive, ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood

... happiness proper to his nature. This was the maddest possible way of rebelling against his true creator; for it is our particular finitude that creates us and makes us be. No one, except in wilful fancy, would envy the peculiar advantages of a whale or an ant, of an Inca or a Grand Lama. An exchange of places with such remote beings would too evidently leave each creature the very same that it was before; for after a nominal exchange of places each office would remain filled and no trace of a change would be perceptible. But the penny ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... odd eyes challenged him with royal self-assurance. "Well? What is the news?" he questioned. "Fished for a sprat and caught a whale—or ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell

... happened which you may believe me or not, as you take the notion, Tom; though why a man who can swallow Daniel and the lion's den, or take down t'other chap who lived three days comfortable into the inside of a whale, should make faces at what I've got to tell I ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... that I understand the meaning of the word cartilaginous, but believe it signifies, that the teeth of the whale are sometimes formed of gristle, ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux

... they were tandorazes, or tandors of the sea, and that the other, and more fearsome reptiles, which occasionally rose from the deep to do battle with them, were azdyryths, or sea-dyryths—Perry called them Ichthyosaurs. They resembled a whale with the head ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... a friend of Jonah as I am of D'Artagnan I should have followed him even into the inside of the whale itself; and you would ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... he was obliged to resort to the inciting of feud and jealousy between the clans, villages, and provinces in the island, to keep them from uniting against him. He found it convenient to employ me as a tub to the whale, and, having first excited the insular jealousy against archaeological intrusion by foreigners, and inducing his clique of subordinate intriguers to oppose my operations, though the Christian population in general were in favor of permitting me to excavate wherever ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... as quickly returned. A skipper is in a low way who, whatever his position, has no eye for the weather; and he felt the tacit reproach. "Name of Names!" he cried. "There is a fog like the inside of Jonah's whale! For the ship beyond I snap the finger at her! She is not! Then forward, mes braves! Yet tranquil! They ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... with a glance at her gaiters, "I've heard you're a whale, Miss, at Sport. Do you 'know anythink' wuth my notice?" She gave me a look of a sort, As I can't put in words, not exactly, a sort o' cold scorch, dontcherknow. That's a bit of a parrydocks p'raps; anyhow, it ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various

... do?" asked Mr. Hardley. "You ought to do something! I'm not going to be killed down here by a whale. You've got to do something, Swift! ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton

... first savings-banks were established in Philadelphia and Boston in 1816. Baltimore had one two years later. Portable fire-proof safes were used in 1820. The Lehigh coal trade flourished this year, and also the manufacture of iron with coal. The whale fishery, too, was now beginning. The first factory in Lowell started in 1821. In 1822 there was a copper rolling mill in Baltimore, the only one then in America, and Paterson, N. J., began the manufacture of cotton duck. Patent leather was made in ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... steam," Rawson went on, "coming out of a fissure in the rocks. I know there's heat and plenty of it down below. We're about due to hit it. The boys are pulling the drill now; they cut through into a whale of ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin

... for whiting, when I heard a peculiar noise behind me, and looking round, saw a huge monster rise from the sea about a hundred yards off, and make straight for me. Before getting to the boat he dived again and again, when I saw that it was apparently a young whale. Instinctively I clutched my gun, and as the monster dived within a dozen yards of my boat I watched its rising; up he came, not twenty feet away, whereupon I let him have both barrels at the back of his head, and to my surprise he immediately turned ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... up early in the morning and ready for the bear hunt. Jim told us what route each should take. He said, "Now boys, be careful, for she is an old whale, and if you get in to a fight with her some one will get hurt, or there ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan

... foliage stretched a glistening, scale-armored neck, as thick as a man's body at its thinnest point, which was just behind a tremendous-jawed crocodilian head. It tapered back for a distance of at least thirty feet, to merge into a body as big as that of a terrestial whale, that was supported by ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... which is incomparably best suited to the climate. In the frozen regions, and every cold country, the best of all nourishment is that which contains a large proportion of fat and oil. In Britain, we read with disgust of the Greenlander eagerly swallowing whale-oil and blubber; but in his country, it is precisely what is best adapted to sustain vital energy. Europeans in the position of Franklin's crew would become acclimatised, and gradually accustomed to the food of the natives, even ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various

... closely attended by Sailor, sprang lightly upon the grating, and following with her eyes Leslie's pointing finger, gazed down into the blue, transparent depths, where she beheld the enormous black bulk of a large sperm whale, lying right up alongside the brig—so close to her, indeed, that his starboard fin was right under her bilge, about a third of his length—from his blow-holes aft toward his tail—showing shiny as ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... asleep manages to rise and find slippers and a wrapper and then pads over to an empty bathroom where he disports himself like a whale. To his surprise he discovers himself whistling—true, the sunlight has an excellent shine to it this morning and the air and the sky outside seem blue and crisp with first ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet

... "You're a peach," he stated. "That's the sort. Laughing mothers to send us off—it makes a whale of a difference." ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... "Men saw from its height the whales tumbling in the waves, and called it Whale's Ness (Hrones-ns)."—Br. p. 28. ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.

... collective treatment in the different chapters, sometimes the most heterogeneous creatures are brought under a common heading. Among the fishes, for instance, are classed all living things that are found in water. The whale and the dolphin, as well as sponges, and oysters, and crocodiles, and sea serpents, and lobsters, and hippopotamuses, all find a place together, because of the common watery habitation. The early Spanish Churchman would seem to have had an enthusiastic zeal for complete classification ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... the calms of the tropics alarmed the sailors. An immense whale was seen sleeping on the waters. They fancied there were monsters in the deep which would devour their ships. The roll of the waves drove them upon currents which they could not stem for want of wind. They imagined they were approaching the cataracts of the ocean, and that they were ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... in his story. So here we have the "Sword Dance" (celebrated by Olaus Magnus, though I have never read of it in Old Norse), the "Questioning of the Sibyl" (like that in Gray's "Descent of Odin"), the "Capture and Sharing of the Whale," and the "Promise of Odin." In most of the natives there are turns of speech that recall the Norse ancestry of ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby

... that show was going to be great," remarked Bob happily, as they were returning home on the train. "But I didn't have any idea that it was going to be such a whale." ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman

... restrain the spirit of enterprise that with increasing prosperity was abroad in Holland. The formation of the Northern or Greenland Company in 1613, specially created in order to contest the claims of the English Muscovy Company to exclusive rights in the whale fishery off Spitsbergen, led to those violent disputes between the fishermen of the two countries, of which an account has been given. The granting of a charter to the Company of New Netherland (1614) was a ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... Sunday mornings at six o'clock, with formidable hungry dogs; and little boys used to look forward eagerly to the day when they would be old enough to be permitted to attend. On Sunday afternoons colliers and potters, gathered round the jawbone of a whale which then stood as a natural curiosity on the waste space near the corn-mill, would discuss the fray, and make bets for next Sunday, while the exhausted dogs licked their wounds, or died. During the Wakes week bull and bear were baited at frequent ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... Seems kind of nat'ral. I never handled such a whale of a craft as this, though. Didn't have many of 'em in my day. Come over in ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... money to burn one day in Paris, I visited one of those jokers, and he told me I was born in Capricorn, under the sign of Aries, and I as good as told him he was a liar, because I was born in Manhattan under an ordinary roof. By Jove! that reminds me, John D., you're a whale on stars. Did you spot those two last night, ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... crowns, No bosomed woods adorn Our blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs, But gnarled and writhen thorn— Bare slopes where chasing shadows skim, And through the gaps revealed Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim Blue goodness of ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various

... almost dropped his oars in astonishment to see a gasoline-launch battling for safety just north of the storm-swept channel. What was a launch doing in this forsaken end of the earth? And the next instant developed the answer. Out at sea, beyond the outer bar, a yacht, wallowing like a white whale, was staggering ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... seen, but infinitely larger, rose above the surface of the water, and presently a great water-snake began to swim slowly round our ship in decreasing circles. Its length could not have been less than 200 feet, while its girth, in the middle, was almost that of a fair-sized whale, tapering towards the head and tail. Lashing the sea around it into foam, the serpent drew closer until it looked as though it would crush the ship in its folds. Hartog, the only man amongst us who preserved his presence of mind, ordered our guns to be ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... with the logs. He's goin' back again after. Sandy an' all his gang are at the camp back o' the lake there waitin' for the ice to break, an' I seen Jimmy Archie Red yisterday, an' he says they're havin' a whale o' a time, drinkin' an' ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... stick-in-the-mud. Don't sit there, doubled up like a government mule," he laughed. (The army lingo still showed itself once in a while in Fred's speech.) "Help me get this room ready or I'll whale you with this," and he waved one end of a trace over his head. "If the fellows are coming they'll be here in half an hour. Shove back that easel and bring in that beer—it's outside the door in a box. I'll get out ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... the spirits of the old Greenland skippers (as every sailor knows), who hunted here, right whales and horse-whales, full hundreds of years agone. But, because we were saucy and greedy, we were all turned into mollys, to eat whale's blubber all our days. But lubbers we are none, and could sail a ship now against any man in the North seas, though we don't hold with this new-fangled steam. And it's a shame of those black imps of petrels to call us so; but because they're ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley

... It is most certain that a Woman's Honour cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in Circle within Circle, amidst such a Variety of Out-works and Lines of Circumvallation. A Female who is thus invested in Whale-Bone is sufficiently secured against the Approaches of an ill-bred Fellow, who might as well think of Sir George Etherege's way of making Love in a Tub, [1] as in the midst of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Church at Jerusalem. There he persuaded the friars that he had been a priest, and obtained the certificates which introduced him to the Pope and to the Emperor's mother; from whom he had received twelve thousand livres for part of the jaw bone of a whale, which he had sold her for the shoulder-bone of a saint. As the police believe the certificates he has produced to be also forged, he is detained in prison until an answer arrives from our ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... down to be blessed as sensibly as a Christian. So the poor beast was shipped again, only to be shipwrecked near Porto Venere, where he was last seen swimming valiantly, but hopelessly impeded by his chain, and baffled by the rocky shore. In the Netherlands, Duerer's curiosity to see a whale nearly resulted in his own shipwreck, and indirectly produced the malady which finally killed him. But Duerer's curiosity was really most scientific where it was most artistic; in his portraits, in his studies of plants and birds and ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... of things," said Hugh grandly. "Perhaps about Adam and Eve, and Jonah and the whale, and Samson and Elijah. Do you know the diff'rence between Enoch and ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss

... to usher in his end with a great whale some three months before, June 2, that came up as far as Greenwich, and there was killed; and more immediately by a terrible storm of wind: the prognosticks that the great Leviathan of men, that tempest and overthrow of government, was now going ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various

... was my favorite sister) had a very narrow escape for our lives. As a rule, whales are not very hard to get away from if you are good at dodging—if you've only got a quick swerve. But this one that came after Clippa and myself was a very mean whale, Every time he lost us under a stone or something he'd come back and hunt and hunt till he routed us out into the open again. I never saw ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... Islands. The scenery was grand—everything looked so fresh and green, very different from the deathlike appearance of Port Moresby and vicinity. The four teachers were close behind us, in their large whale- boat, with part of their things. On getting out of the Straits, we saw East Cape; but, as there was no anchorage there, we made for Killerton Island, about ten miles from the Cape. The wind being very light, it was eight ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers

... last whale we ketched, Jack,—that big bull that so nigh upsot us all. Come, that's a story worth while!' It was the man that had led him in who said this; and he laughed loud, and slapped him on the shoulder as he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... notwithstanding the severity of the weather, except part of a seal-skin which was thrown over their shoulders; and they eat their food, which was such as no other animal but a hog would touch, without any dressing: They had with them a large piece of whale blubber, which stunk intolerably, and one of them tore it to pieces with his teeth, and gave it about to the rest, who devoured it with the voracity of a wild beast. They did not, however, look upon what they saw in the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... Parliament to astonish the country squires. He fancies himself a second Goethe, I hav'n't forgot his hitting at me, before a large supper party, with a certain epigram of that old turkeycock's about the whale having his unmentionable parasite—and the great man likewise. Whale, indeed! I bide my time, Alton, my boy—I bide my time; and then let your grand aristocrat look out! If he does not find the supposed whale-unmentionable a good stout holding harpoon, with a ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... others to resent and endeavour to revenge. But, as I have said, he continually makes pretensions to an offensive superiority. You may think I do not fail to humble the youth, whenever opportunity offers. But no! Humble him, indeed! Shew him boiling ice! Stew a whale in an oyster-shell! Make mount Caucasus into a bag pudding! But do not imagine he may be moved! The legitimate son of Cato's eldest bastard, he! A petrified Possidonius, in ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... I demanded. I had not caught little trout in the Pennsylvania hills for nothing. "They eat, don't they? That fish I saw was a whale, and he broke water for a bug. Get me a pole and ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... perched with one knee on her gunwale and let the other foot drag in the water for a minute. He was afloat after all; and he took the oars, and pulled manfully out toward the moorings, where the whale-boats and a sail-boat or two were swaying about in the wind, which was rising a little since the sun had set. He did not say a word to me, or I to him. I watched him go out into the twilight,—such a little fellow, between ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various

... we should tremble at the roar of the king of beasts? We will not go out of our way to seek a conflict with him; but if he cross our path, and refuses to move at a peaceful command, he will run his nose on the talons of the American eagle, and his blood will spout as from a harpooned whale. The spectators who look on the struggle may prepare to hear a crash, as if the very ribs ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... (Let me be sure) that I put forth from London, There was a whale discover'd in the river, As high as Woolwich, that had waited there, Few know how many months, for the subversion Of the ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... raised herself up in bed with a vindictive scowl, displaying as she did so the same whale-like curved back as in the other "cases." "But we've sent 'im to the lockup," she continued, the scowl giving way fast to a radiant joy of victory as she contemplated her triumph "an' wot's more, I 'ad the last word of 'im. 'An 'e'll git ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... spirits or tobacco in casks or packages of less size than 40 gallons; or tea, tobacco, or snuff, in any package containing less than 450 lbs. in weight—this craft was to be forfeited. And vessels (not square-rigged), if found unlicensed, were also to be forfeited. But whale-boats, fishing-boats, pilot's boats, purely inland boats, and boats belonging to square-rigged ships ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... Kid acts like he's got the blues this morning," Skinny said as the Clagstone "Six" rolled away from the stables. "He looks to me like a feller that's in just the right humor to get on a whale of a drunk—" ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman

... water? The ox has drunk it. Where is the ox? Out in the fields. Who is behind there? My friend Matthew. What has he in his hand? A piece of bread. What has he on his feet? A pair of torn shoes. What has he on his back? A whale. What has he in his belly? A balance. What has he on his ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane

... child created a slight consternation in her Sunday School class last week when they were being taught the great dramatic story of Jonah's three days' incarceration in the whale. To quote her exactly, so that you may see how it must have affected the other children, she said: 'I swallowed a live fly onct myself and I'm not damn fool enough to believe that whale kept Jonah down three days, alive and kicking, ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... meekness that she was troubled because an Ethical Lecturer had said that Dickens was not really Progressive; but she thought he was Progressive; and surely he was Progressive. Of what being Progressive was she had no more notion than a whale. The second person implored him for a subscription to some soup kitchen or cheap meal; and his refined features sharpened; for this, like literature, was a matter of principle with him. "Quite the wrong method," he said, shaking his head ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... and the palm have to climb to live," he said, "but they've done it. It isn't any funnier, however, than the fact that the whale lived on land millions of years ago, and had to take to the water to escape being eaten up by bigger and fiercer animals than himself. I'm a Maine man and so I know ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... went by the board. That was in the 60th longitude, I think (where whales were still to be found in those years), and seven hundred miles or so to the east of Spitzbergen. On the day—it was in August—that the storm first overtook us, the boats were out in pursuit of a 'right' whale, as, I believe, the men called it—a great bull creature, and piebald like a horse; and I saw the spouting of his breath as if a water main had burst in a London fog. The wind came in a sudden charge from the northwest, ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes



Words linked to "Whale" :   whale louse, whalebone whale, whaler, whale sucker, baleen whale, heavyweight, giant, fin whale, bowhead whale, bottle-nosed whale, hunt, toothed whale, black whale, dwarf sperm whale, narwhale, run, narwhal, spouter, right whale, white whale, sperm whale, track down, finback whale, grey whale, sei whale, pilot whale, beaked whale, hulk, large person, whale shark, piked whale, hunt down, cetacean, cetacean mammal, minke whale, Greenland whale, pygmy sperm whale, gray whale, Monodon monoceros, whale oil, narwal, blue whale, humpback whale, bottlenose whale, killer whale



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