A voyage of discovery towards the North Pole : performed in His Majesty's ships Dorothea and Trent, under the command of Captain David Buchan, ; 1818 : to which is added, a summary of all the early attempts to reach the Pacific by way of the Pole . y ac-tually bore up with their tusks, and assiduouslypreserved from sinking. Whether this singularand compassionate conduct, which in all pro-bability was done to prevent suffocation, arosefrom the sagacity of the animals, it is difficultto say, but there is every probability of it, andthe fact must form an interesting trait in thehistory of the
A voyage of discovery towards the North Pole : performed in His Majesty's ships Dorothea and Trent, under the command of Captain David Buchan, ; 1818 : to which is added, a summary of all the early attempts to reach the Pacific by way of the Pole . y ac-tually bore up with their tusks, and assiduouslypreserved from sinking. Whether this singularand compassionate conduct, which in all pro-bability was done to prevent suffocation, arosefrom the sagacity of the animals, it is difficultto say, but there is every probability of it, andthe fact must form an interesting trait in thehistory of the habits of the species. After the discharge of the pursers gun thereremained of all the herd only one little assail-ant, which the seamen, out of compassion, wereunwilling to molest. This young animal hadbeen observed fighting by the side of the leader,and from the protection which was afforded itby its courageous patron, was imagined to be oneof its young. The little animal had no tusks,but it swam violently against the boat, andstruck her with its head, and indeed would havestove her, had it not been kept off by whale-lances,some of which made deep incisions in its youngsides; these, however, had not any immediate It* ? ^««««iliili^«^^. RECIPROCAL AFFECTION. 95 effect; the attack was continued, and the en-raged little animal, though disfigured withwounds, even crawled upon the ice in pursuit ofthe seamen, who had relanded there, until oneof them, out of compassion, put an end to itssufferings. The reciprocal affection of parent and offspringwas certainly never more strongly displayed thanby these animals. On another occasion, oneof our boats attacked a male and a female, andwounded the latter in the head whilst she wassuckling her young, which she retained againsther breast with her flipper. The male imme-diately plunged into the sea, apparently to re-venge the aggression upon the boat; while thefemale deliberately placed her young more care-fully under her left fin, and
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, bookid, booksubjectarcticregions
