Word: worthington
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...down once and for all the ancient reports that big (up to 65 ft.) sperm whales "talk" to each other beneath the surface, although they have no vocal cords. Last week's issue of the British magazine Nature carries a report by Schevill and L. Valentine Worthington, an oceanographer on the Institution's Atlantis, that produces scientific evidence to support what oldtime whalers have been spouting for centuries: the sperm whale is a great talker...
Click. Click. Click. Off North Carolina, Worthington was manning an echo-sounding receiver on a regular project when he heard a loud hammering. "Cut out the racket," he yelled. "I can't hear a damn thing." After everyone on board lad indignantly denied hammering, a herd of six sperm whales slowly broke water near...
...ship had no phonographic recorder, so Worthington noted carefully the exact intonations of the noises of that and subsequent eavesdroppings on the whales. Two later voyages with a tape recorder confirmed his memory. "First there was a loud, strong sound," he said last week at Woods Hole, "then this clicking noise. Click. Click. Click. Over and over. I counted 70 in a row. They came as fast as five to a second...
...Worthington imitated a whale, Schevill smiled beatifically. "Maybe that's one individual talking," said...
...Then there was a great confusion of clicks," continued Worthington, "branching out at all levels...