Blue whales will sometimes break off a song, then pick it up again at the same spot six months later. 蓝鲸有时候突然不叫，然后6个月以后又在同一地点接着叫下去。

Sometimes they strike up with a new song, which no member can have heard before but which each already knows. 有时候它们还会发出一种新的叫声，这种声音以前可能哪条蓝鲸也没有听到过，但每条蓝鲸都已懂得。

How they do this is not remotely understood. 它们怎么办得到，为什么要这么办，我们一点儿也不清楚。

And these are animals that must routinely come to the surface to breathe. 而且，那些动物还必须经常浮到水面来呼吸。

For animals that need never surface, obscurity can be even more tantalizing. 至于从不需要浮到水面的动物，它们的朦胧状态可能更令人感到好奇。

Consider the fabled giant squid. 想一想那个著名的大乌贼。

Though nothing on the scale of the blue whale, it is a decidedly substantial animal, 虽然它的个儿比不上蓝鲸，但它肯定是个庞然大物，

with eyes the size of soccer balls and trailing tentacles that can reach lengths of sixty feet. 眼睛有足球那么大，触角可以伸到18米长。

It weighs nearly a ton and is Earth's largest invertebrate. 它的分量差不多有1吨重，是地球上最大的无脊椎动物。

If you dumped one in a normal household swimming pool, there wouldn't be much room for anything else. 要是你在小游泳池里放上个大乌贼，就没有多少地方放别的东西。

Yet no scientist—no person as far as we know—has ever seen a giant squid alive. 但是，没有哪个科学家——据我们所知也没有哪个人——看见过活的大乌贼。

Zoologists have devoted careers to trying to capture, or just glimpse, living giant squid and have always failed. 有的动物学家花了毕生的时间想要捕捉或就看一眼活的大乌贼，但总以失败告终。

They are known mostly from being washed up on beaches—particularly, for unknown reasons, the beaches of the South Island of New Zealand. 人们之所以知道，主要是因为它们被冲上海滩——由于不知道的原因，尤其是新西兰南岛的海滩。

They must exist in large numbers because they form a central part of the sperm whale's diet, and sperm whales take a lot of feeding. 它们肯定大量存在，因为它们是抹香鲸的主要食物，而抹香鲸的食量是很大的。

The indigestible parts of giant squid, in particular their beaks, （大乌贼的不可消化部分，尤其是他的喙部，

accumulate in sperm whales' stomachs into the substance known as ambergris, which is used as a fixative in perfumes. 积累在抹香鲸胃部的鲸蜡里，形成了所谓的龙诞香。龙诞香用做香水的固定剂。

The next time you spray on Chanel No. 5 (assuming you do), you may wish to reflect that you are dousing yourself in distillate of unseen sea monster. 你下一次喷洒夏奈尔5号香水的时候，你也许会愿意想到，你是在用一种不露面的海洋怪物的蒸馏物打扮你自己。）