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But while the busy seven were thus disporting themselves in happy security there suddenly appeared among them a delightful companion in the shape of a newly-born calf, elegantly dappled like his sire, the first-born son of the youngest mother in the group. It is not the habit of the cachalot to show that intense self-effacing devotion to its young which is evinced by other mammals, especially whales of the mysticetæ. Nevertheless, as the expectation of this latest addition to the family had been the reason of their visit to these quiet latitudes, his coming made a pleasant little ripple of satisfaction vibrate throughout the group. Even the apparently impenetrable stolidity of the head of the school was aroused into some faint tokens of interest in the new-comer, who clung leech-like to his mother’s side, vigorously draining the enormous convexity of her bosom of its bounteous flood of milk. So well did he thrive, that at the end of a week the youngster was able to hold his own with the school in a race, and competent also to remain under water quite as long as his mother. Then the stately leader signified to his dependants that the time was now at hand when they must change their pleasant quarters. Food was less plentiful than it had been, which was but natural, remembering the ravages necessarily made by such a company of monsters. Moreover, a life of continual ease and slothful luxury such as of late had been theirs was not only favourable to the growth of a hampering investiture of parasites—barnacles, limpets, and weed—all over their bodies, but it completely unfitted them for the stern struggle awaiting them, when in their periodical progress round the world they should arrive on the borders of the fierce Antarctic Zone. And besides all these, had they forgotten that they were liable to meet with man! A sympathetic shudder ran through every member of the school at that dreaded name, under the influence of which they all drew closer around their chief, sweeping their broad flukes restlessly from side to side and breathing inaudibly.