Tanzania, April 20 -- Whales are mysterious creatures. They move in a sea of total sound. It's quite interesting that from the moment of its birth until its final hour, day and night, a whale hears an endless orchestra of massive sounds flooding through its senses all the time.

Whales constantly hear sounds, and they constantly make sounds. Silence is a completely unknown thing.

Throughout life, a whale hears the ceaseless snapping and crackling of tiny shrimp and crablike organisms; the grunting and grating; the puffing and booming of a hundred fish; the eerie whining and yelling of dolphins; and the sad voices of sea birds overhead.

Victor B. Scheffer narrates this in his magnificently eye-dripping and fascinating book, The Year of t...