The noises of the sperm whale are unlike the lyric hootings and musings of the humpback, whose 'songs' won him a place in the LP charts in the 1970s. Recordings of the humpback were no doubt helped by the fact that 'true whales' - those species, to which he belongs, equipped with strips of whalebone and long pelmets of baleen in their mouths for sieving their food - seldom dive more than a few hundred metres. The sperm whale, a toothed mammal whose lower jaw resembles a vast surfboard with peaked crenellations at its edges, has been found at 3000 metres. The sounds emitted under water by the sperm whale have little charm to the human ear: a series of clicks and clacks, wan rustlings and whirrings, which can sound aimless and even faintly stupid. One thinks of a large stapling device being applied to the edge of a pappadum, or a feral child fiddling with the controls of a rusting dishwasher.

LRB 31 October 2002 | PDF Download