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Set er hk. a rad wi , se a ey J v< “a aw AAA we ~} a w wee ef ity vy sd HAS PERI ee WSS ae Dee L 4 j w/|) f\ ‘ ~ tte FOS ww o A~ be; we Ry we OS ey ww 25 Seaueeeyc welts! td oe byey Wecervexcce coset AALS Se Ser fA ISS RAS Na eee, bag ad wy Nee tS Rete te ewe SMe w ‘wo afin ns haley yi 92 soe ! = a RSs is oak ea eg gy teas 8 of ee os tors nd Se J) Spraat re et I ae a A= oe LS Oe C% r ¢ ( € a q ‘ce ‘@ a @i a | ( @ « P r (ea € rf COG Paar al @ c f svt se eees weyue ACh y whe Ded en wy ee WESC ECE | eS i Nwwiee Se s* wy Ne ‘ew i I~ eae “=e ~ DARA CA te ae “ft =# ~: a —“~ DISA wh Sve ADAG “ al dur wh, SN See : SNe Ss ~¢) As w I FAP weve st ; Wty ee wan iver The species of whale is not indicated, but some may have been Right Whales. 1620.— At the time of their arrival at Cape Cod, in late December, 1620, the Pilgrims found whales in numbers about the bay. The oft-quoted journal of Bradford and Winslow, 1 Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, Abridged, 1734, vol. 7, pt. 3, p. 426-427. 2 Documents relative to Colonial Hist. N. Y., 1855, vol. 5, p. 59. 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1848, ser. 3, vol. 8, p. 156. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 133 relates that ‘‘every day we saw whales playing hard by us; of which in that place, if we had instruments and means to take them, we might have made a very rich return, which to our great grief we wanted. Our master and his mate, and others, experienced in fishing, professed we might have made three or four thousand pounds worth of oil. They preferred it before Greenland whale-fishing, and purpose the next winter to fish for whale here.’ This was off the present-day Truro. It is significant that there were on board the Mayflower, persons b] “‘experienced in [whale] fishing,’ who at once saw that these whales that daily came about the vessel, were of the sort that yielded profit in oil and whalebone — hence, Right Whales. No doubt the men ‘‘preferred it before Greenland whale-fishing” because of the less hardship involved. Possibly also the fact that they intended ‘‘the next winter to fish for whale here”’ may indicate that they were aware that the Right Whale left the coast in the warm season. 1635.— John Winthrop in his History of New England from 1630 to 1649 (1825, vol. 1, p. 157) mentions that in April of this year three or four whales were cast ashore on Cape Cod, a thing which, he says, happens ‘‘almost every year.”’ That these were large whales, and probably Right Whales, is indicated by the fact that several of the Massachusetts Bay colonists sailed across the Bay to try out the oil. 1668.— An old journal, kept by the Rev. Simon Bradstreet, mentions the capture of a whale, doubtless of this species, in Boston Harbor, ‘‘ below the Castle” in the month of October (New Eng. Hist. and Geneal. Record, 1855, vol. 9, p. 44). 1697.— The good Cotton Mather in this year makes mention of a cow whale with its calf, captured at Yarmouth, Mass. ‘‘The cow was 55 feet long: the bone was 9 or 10 in. wide; a cart upon wheels might have gone into the mouth of it. The calf was 20 ft. long, for unto such vast calves the sea-monsters draw forth their breasts. But so does the good God here give this people to suck the abundance of the seas.” 1703.— About the middle of February, three “great whales, betwixt six and seven and eight foot bone” were killed or wounded in the waters about Martha’s Vineyard, and the wounds and the marks of the harpoons are recorded by the Clerk of Edgartown (Starbuck, 1878, p. 35). 1706.— Under date of December 10th, John Higginson of Salem writes to Symond Epes of Ipswich concerning ‘‘a rumor of several whales, that are gotten” (J. B. Felt: History of Ipswich, Essex, and Hamilton, 1834, p. 109). Probably this refers to Right Whales killed in Ipswich Bay. 1707.— Starbuck (1878, p. 34) mentions that the Boston papers of December 12th, recount the pursuit and capture of a whale 40 feet long in Boston Harbor, near the back of Noddle’s Island. Probably, from the size, and the fact that it was pursued and killed, it was a Right Whale. 1A Relation or Journal of a Plantation settled at Plymouth in New England, and Proceedings thereof: ete. Coll. Mass. Hist. Soe., 1802, ser. 1, vol. 8, p. 204. 134 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 1712.— An item in the Boston News-Letter for Dec. 8, 1712, tells us that on the 25th of November, ‘‘six men going off the Gurnet Beach in a whale boat at Duxberry after a whale, by reason of the Boisterousness of the sea, oversetting the Boat, they were all drowned” (Justin Winsor: History of Duxbury, Mass., 1849, p. 86.) 1724.— Winsor (History of Duxbury, Mass., 1849, p. 86) notes on December 3d, ‘‘a whale captured off the beach.” 1736.— In March, a large whale was captured at sea by a vessel from Provincetown, and its blubber brought into that port for trying out. That this was a Right Whale is evidenced by the amount of oil, estimated at over 100 barrels (Boston News-Letter, Apl. 1, 1736). Starbuck (1878, p. 158) quotes the Boston News-Letter of Mar. 18th, that a whale was ‘“‘lately killed near Cape Cod” that would make its owners £1,500. He adds that this must have been either an extraordinary whale or a surprising inaccuracy, implying a yield of at least 2,500 pounds of whalebone and about 290 barrels of oil at prices then current. This supposed yield is very nearly that of the Arctic Bowhead Whale, and it is to be regretted that more data are not available for determining if a straggler of that species may not have occasionally followed the polar current thus far to the south (see also a record under the year 18438). 1755.— On February 10th, of this year, a town meeting, at Truro, to hear and act upon the reply of a Rev. Caleb Upham, in response to a call to this parish, was by vote adjourned to the following day, ‘‘inasmuch as many of the inhabitants are called away from the meeting by news of a whale in the bay.” This incident shows the importance of the occasional cap- tures of whales at that time, and that the people were in readiness to pursue them whenever they appeared. 1800.— On April 10th, a number of whales appeared on the north side of Nantucket two or three miles off the land. Several boats were at once sent in pursuit, and succeeded in killing two and towing them ashore. The larger made thirty-one, the smaller (evidently a calf) but sixteen barrels of oil. April 19th, nine days later, a 30-barrel whale was killed and brought into the harbor (O. Macy: History of Nantucket, 1835, p. 150). These whales were doubtless Right Whales, not only because of the amount of oil they yielded but because they could be floated ashore. 1822.— Under date of March 28th, the Nantucket Inquirer notes that four smacks were engaged in whaling off Long Island in the early part of that month, and had brought to land at Spermaceti Cove a 50-barrel whale. A second was reported to have been captured at the same time. In the Inquirer of April 4th, it is stated that ‘‘another large whale has been taken near Sandy Hook.’’ Again, under date of May 9th, ‘‘A whale was struck, in Boston Bay, a few days since, by a Cape Cod vessel, but broke the tow line and escaped.’ These records with little doubt, apply to the Right Whale. The first, because of the large yield of oil, could be NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 135 referred to none other; and the last, because of the fact that the Cape Cod people recognized the futility of pursuing Finbacks, and were not in the habit of molesting them. 1826.— About the middle of May, according to an item in the Sagharbor Corrector (copied in the Inquirer of May 20th) a small party of Right Whales appeared off Wainscott, eastern Long Island. Two were first seen, one of which, estimated to be a 100-barrel whale, was struck but escaped. Shortly, a calf was discovered and killed, which, it was estimated, would produce forty barrels of oil. At the same time a 100-barrel whale was killed at Westhampton. Here, then, were four Right Whales, three large and one small, off the shores of eastern Long Island. 1828.— In February (according to the Inquirer of the 22d of that month), a Right Whale 44 feet long, and rated at about seventy barrels of oil, was killed in the waters off Providence, R. I., after having been seen for several days ‘‘sporting in our river.”’ 1838.— A Right Whale, about 40 feet long, was found dead off Newburyport, Mass., about September Ist, and towed ashore at Salisbury Point. It was estimated that it would make about forty barrels of oil (Newburyport Herald). This is unusually early in the fall for this species to appear on our coasts. 1840.— A 40-barrel Right Whale was killed off Amagansett, eastern Long Island, about May Ist (Inquirer, May 8, 1840). At about this time also, Linsley (1842, p. 352) writes that a whale of this species was taken at Stonington, Connecticut ‘‘a few years since.” It was a small one, yielding twenty-seven barrels of oil, but another from the same ‘gang’ was taken into Montauk, Long Island, that yielded sixty barrels. 1843.— On May 11th of this year, what is said to have been the largest Right Whale ever taken on this coast was killed in the South Channel, southeast of Chatham, Mass., by a crew of Provincetown men, in the little pink-stern schooner Cordelia. According to a note in H. A. Jennings’s Provincetown or, Odds and Ends from the Tip End (1890, p. 193) this whale was estimated at nearly three hundred barrels of oil and about one and one half tons of whalebone. “The little craft not having the facilities for handling the monster, saved only about one hun- dred and twenty-five barrels of the oil and three hundred pounds of the bone, which was over fourteen feet in length [!]. The little craft was then full, hold and deck. Signals were made to a passing vessel but no notice was taken, so the rest of the whale was abandoned. The value of the fish was over $12,000.’ A contemporary item in the Boston Advertiser, copied in the Nantucket Inquirer of July 1, 1843, briefly recounts this capture, and gives the locality as thirty-five miles offshore, Nantucket bearing W. by N. It adds that “the whale is the largest that has ever been caught from Provincetown, and is supposed to be the largest ever seen upon our coast.’’ If the statement be really correct that the whalebone was fourteen feet long, it may be that the whale was a stray specimen of the Arctic Bowhead (Balaena mysti- cetus), a Supposition that is somewhat strengthened by the fact of its immense yield of oil. 136 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 1847.— The Inquirer of April 21st, notes that five whales were taken off the east coast of Long Island, on one day of the previous week, between Southampton and East Hampton. 1848.— About the last week of January several whales were seen off Long Island and one was killed near Southampton (Inquirer, Jan. 28, 1848). About the middle of April, a considerable number of Right Whales were seen off the Massa- chusetts coast, near Plymouth, and five vessels went off in pursuit, but with what success does not appear. At the same time a few were seen off the eastern coast of Long Island, of which two were killed, one near Binghampton, the other near Southampton (Inquirer, Apl. 17, 1848). 1850.— A large Right Whale was captured during the last week of January, in Province- town Harbor (Inquirer, Jan. 28, 1850); a second, yielding about fifty barrels of oil, was taken a week later (about the first of February) in the same harbor (Inquirer, Feb. 4, 1850). About November Ist, a Right Whale appeared, again in Provincetown Harbor, and after a hard fight in which one boat was damaged and the helmsman injured, was finally killed. It yielded about sixty barrels of oil (Inquirer, Nov. 6, 1850). 1851.— A whale about 44 feet long was captured March Ist, near the shore at Southampton, Long Island. It was estimated to yield only about thirty barrels (Inquirer, Mar. 10, 1851). A second Right Whale was taken at the same place about two weeks later (Inquirer, Mar. 21, 1851). From the fact that it yielded but twenty-five barrels of oil, it was probably a calf. 1852.— About the middle of May, a large Right Whale was captured in Massachusetts Bay by a crew from Provincetown. It yielded seventy-five barrels of oil, the whalebone was eight feet long, and the total value of oil and bone was about $2000 (Inquirer, May 17, 1852). During the month of May, five Right Whales were killed off Southampton, Long Island, three in the first nine days of the month, and two on a single day near its close. One of these yielded forty barrels, the two last together, seventy barrels (Inquirer, May 17, and June 4, 1852). According to the Inquirer of October 13, 1852, two ‘‘whales”’ were captured by a Province- town whaling schooner in Massachusetts Bay in the early part of October. Though there is no conclusive evidence as to the species, they were probably Right Whales. 1853.— This season seems to have been very favorable for whales on the east coast of Long Island. During March, the schooner Corwin of Greenport, L. I., made her first trip of about two weeks whaling, and although whales were seen every day, the sea was so rough that but one was killed. This yielded forty-one barrels of oil. On her second cruise, the Corwin captured a whale April Ist, that made seventy or eighty barrels of oil. On March 19th, a Right Whale was struck by a boat’s crew from Amagansett, but was not taken (Inquirer, April 13, 1853). About the middle of April, a large whale rated at forty-five barrels, was killed off Southampton, Long Island (Inquirer, April 18, 1853). The Inquirer of May 18, 1853, relates that several whales had been seen and chased among the vessels at anchor in Provincetown Harbor during the spring and that three or four vessels NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 157 there were fitted for a few days’ whaling cruise about the shore. Two whales were killed in the harbor and a third escaped during the latter part of April. The record does not indicate what species of whale is meant, but some at least may have been Right Whales. 1854.—A 30-barrel Right Whale was struck off Southampton, Long Island, on April 29th, (Inquirer, May 10, 1854). This whale proved to be a fighter, and turning on his pursuers, demolished their boat and though mortally wounded, injured several of the whalers. About the middle of December, a dead Right Whale, 48 feet long, drifted ashore at the mouth of Sandwich Harbor, Mass. The blubber was said to be seven inches thick, and the oil would amount to thirty or forty barrels. A harpoon found in the whale was supposed to have been the cause of its death. This whale was probably the one struck in Provincetown Harbor on December 11th, and subsequently lost through the parting of the line (Inquirer, Dec. 20 and 25, 1854). 1855.— A ‘’longshore whale’? was captured off Southampton, Long Island, on April 16th, by one of the whaling companies. It was brought to shore for trying out the oil, of which about thirty barrels were expected (Inquirer, April 25, 1855). From the amount of oil, and the fact that the carcass was floated ashore, this was doubtless a Right Whale. 1858.— A 40-barrel whale was killed off the coast of Southampton, Long Island, about the first of March (Inquirer, Mar. 5, 1858). A second Right Whale, which yielded about thirty barrels of oil, was killed off East Hampton, Long Island, in the latter part of November, by boats from the shore. In the last week of the same month, a large Right Whale appeared in Provincetown Harbor, and though several times fired at with harpoon guns, eventually escaped (Inquirer, Nov. 30, 1858). 1863.— A large Right Whale appeared off the south coast of Nantucket, a short distance from shore, about the 10th of November, but was not molested (Inquirer, Nov. 14, 1863). 1864.— A Right Whale was killed in Cape Cod Bay, in April of this year. It was said to have been 48 feet long, and to have yielded eighty barrels and fourteen gallons of oil (which sold at $1.14 per gallon) as well as a thousand pounds of whalebone valued at $1,000. The skele- ton of this whale is now mounted in the Museum of Comparative Zoélogy, at Cambridge. Mr. J. Henry Blake has kindly informed me that according to one of the captors of this whale it was actually killed within about four miles of Gurnet Lights, Plymouth, and towed by the Wasp to Provincetown. In the last week of November, two Right Whales were seen lazily moving about at the north end of Nantucket, inside the bar. A boat was manned and went in pursuit, but was unable to get fast (Inquirer, Nov. 30, 1864). 1870.— A Right Whale with a calf, entered Provincetown Harbor about the first of March, and was at once pursued by a boat from the shore. In lancing the whale, the line was cut and the animal escaped (Inquirer and Mirror, Mar. 6, 1870). 1876.— About the first week in November a 40-barrel Right Whale grounded on the 138 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. bar near Capaum Pond, Nantucket. By the time a boat had been manned and sent in pursuit from the shore, the whale had freed itself and headed back to deeper water. Although closely pursued it finally escaped (Inquirer and Mirror, Nov. 11, 1876). 1877. A “‘large scrag whale’ was seen in the outer bay of Nantucket about the first of November (Inquirer and Mirror, Noy. 3, 1877). 1884.— About the last of March, Right Whales were seen off Long Island. Crews put off in pursuit of a large whale and her calf, but after being led twenty miles out to sea, were foreed to relinquish the chase (Nantucket Journal, Apl. 3, 1884). 1886.— About the middle of April a small school of Right Whales appeared off Tuckernuck Island, Mass., and seems to have remained in the neighborhood a week or more. At all events Right Whales were sighted on several subsequent days. The report states that a small school of whales was first seen off Smith’s Point, and on their reappearance two days later, a boat was sent in pursuit. A 60-barrel Right Whale was soon struck and it at once headed to sea, towing the boat at a lively pace. When about thirty miles from land, the men deemed it best to cut the line, as a thick fog had come on, and with difficulty they found their way back to Muskeget. Four days later, whales were again sighted off shore, and very soon a 40-barrel whale was struck and killed. This whale almost at once sank in eleven fathoms of water, so that the crew was obliged to fasten a buoy to it until it rose the following day by reason of the gases generated through decomposition (Nantucket Journal, Apl. 22, 1886). A later report states that all told three Right Whales were killed and brought to Tuckernuck, and that the first whale struck and lost, was later picked up and towed into New Bedford. The yield from the three whales was about 125 barrels of oil and 1500 pounds of whalebone (Nan- tucket Journal, Apl. 29, May 6, 1886). Near the last of April, a school of about twenty-five whales appeared in the same vicinity, and the schooner Glide put to sea in pursuit, but returned without having made a capture. Shortly after the vessel’s departure from Miacomet Rip, three large whales appeared and for several hours were seen near where the Glide had been anchored (Inquirer and Mirror, May 8, 1886). Again, about the 10th of May, a Right Whale was seen off Siasconset, Nantucket Island. It followed the shore line for a long distance within one or two hundred yards of the beach, occasionally rising to blow. So clear was the water that the whale was plainly visible from the bluff as it swam at no great depth beneath the surface (Nantucket Journal, May 13, 1886). This is the largest visitation of Right Whales to our coast of which we have any record in recent times. The Nantucket Journals of April, 1887, have several other references to whales seen off the coast of the island, but there is no clue to the species. 1887.— Mr. J. Henry Blake notes that a bull Right Whale, taken this year at Province- town, made seventy barrels of oil, and measured 47 feet in length. 1888.— Two Right Whales were killed in Massachusetts Bay, off Provincetown, about NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 139 the 20th of May. Together they yielded about 170 barrels of oil. A few days later a Right Whale about 50 feet long was found dead near the George’s Bank and brought to Province- town. It seems to have been one killed the previous week by the steamer A. B. Nickerson (Nantucket Journal, May 24, May 31, 1888). In the first week of June, the steamer A. B. Nickerson, while hunting for whales off Cape Cod, discovered a Right Whale with a calf and succeeding in killing them both with bomb- lances. The calf soon sank but the old whale was secured and towed to Provincetown. It was a very large one 55 or 60 feet long and estimated at one hundred barrels of oil and 1500 pounds of whalebone (Nantucket Journal, June 7, 1888). This is an unusually late date for the Right Whale on our coasts. 1891.— Several Right Whales were seen off Surfside, Nantucket, about the first week in April (Inquirer and Mirror, Apl. 11, 1891). 1893.— Major E. A. Mearns furnishes me with a note of what was said to have been a Right Whale, about 50 feet in length, that was stranded on Ochre Point, Newport, R. I. The blubber had already been removed by one Mr. Church at Tiverton, where the whale had been killed. The carcass was finally sunk at sea by order of the City Council. The exact date is not available. 1894.— Major Mearns sends me also the record of a Right Whale that appeared off Beaver Tail, Conanicut Island, R. I., in this year. It finally was sighted off Fort Adams, where it was shot and killed (exact date unknown). He adds that Mr. Joshua P. Clark, formerly in charge of the Life Saving Station at Watch Hill, R. I., told him that Right Whales have been seen off Block Island in more recent years, although the most part of the whales seen in those waters are Finbacks. 1895.— A large bull Right Whale measuring some 42 feet in length, and rated at fifty or sixty barrels of oil, was killed in late March, off Nahant. According to the reports, this whale, or what was believed to be the same individual, first appeared early in the preceding October near Hull, Mass., and was usually to be seen in the deep water near Harding’s Ledge, or else- where in that part of Boston Bay. A crew of experienced men was finally got together, and succeeded in harpooning the whale, which eventually made off with some thirty fathoms of line attached to a stout cask. Two days after (on April Ist) the whale was found dead 25 miles north of Race Point by the tug Peter Bradley from Provincetown, whither the prize was at once taken. It was later exhibited at Boston (Nantucket Journal, Feb. 7, Mar. 14, May 9, 1895). The fact of its having wintered in Boston Bay from October till March, is certainly of much interest if true. The actual substantiation of this belief is, of course, quite out of the question. My friend, Mr. J. Henry Blake, has given me some measurements of this whale, which are elsewhere referred to, and from these he has drawn the subject of Plate 8. 1897.— Two Right Whales were seen off the Great Neck Life Saving Station, Nantucket, 140 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. about the Ist of April. Two boats were made ready and three days later several Right Whales appeared near the same place. The boats at once started in pursuit and one of them came nearly within striking distance when its rudder broke, so that the whale escaped (Nantucket Journal, Apl. 8, 1897). 1909.— On January 15th, a small Right Whale, nearly 35 feet long, came into Province- town Harbor and entangled itself in one of the fish-traps, where it was killed by a bomb-lance. Local report states that the whale had been seen in the bay for a day or two previous. This specimen I saw five days later at Provincetown, and it was afterward brought to Boston and exhibited by some enterprising young undertakers who injected it thoroughly with formalin. One of the men at Provincetown, who had been once himself a whaler, vouchsafed the informa- tion that this was a ‘‘runt”’ or “‘scrag”’ whale, a term that formerly much mystified the system- “e atists, who concluded from the accounts of whalers, that the ‘“‘scrag”? must be a distinct species, for which, indeed, Cope even erected a new genus (Agaphelus). I have elsewhere given notes and measurements of this specimen, and the sketch shown on Plate 9 is drawn from these. 1910.— Mr. D. C. Stull, of Provincetown, tells me that a Right Whale was seen in the waters off that port in the spring of this year, but it was not captured. He further says that they are more often seen in the spring, but of late years few have been observed. An old captain at Nantucket likewise informs me they are now of much rarer occurrence off those shores than formerly, and that the spring is the season when they are most apt to appear. 1913.— The Keeper at the U. 8S. Life Saving Station on Muskeget Island told me that “about three weeks ago”’ or about the 24th of May, two were seen together off the south shore of that islet but no one was prepared to give them chase. From the table opposite, the numerous Long Island records have been omitted so that it refers wholly to the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It is curious that I have come upon no specific records for the Right Whale from the rocky shores of Maine, although Hitch- cock includes it without comment in his nominal list of the Mammalia of that State.'_ Bigelow has shown (1914), however, that the northwestern part of the Gulf of Maine is relatively poor in plankton, which may in part account for this. ’ A survey of the foregoing records and table shows that the Right Whale is practically absent from the New England waters during the summer and fall from early June until Octo- ber. The single September record is of a Right Whale found dead off Newburyport, Mass., about the first of that month, 1838. When this species was more plentiful than now, the first individuals doubtless appeared in our waters during the latter half of October, for at Long Island, according to the letter of Lord Cornbury in 1708 (see antea, p. 132) the whalemen there 1 Hitchcock, C. H. Proc. Portland Soc. Nat. Hist., 1862, vol. 1, p. 66. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 141 Records of Right Whales in New England. (n = number indefinite). Locality Year Jan. Feb. | March | April May | June | July | Aug. sot Oct. | Noy. Dec. = = — ——— } @apel\CodsBay-= 4... 5: -.- NGZOR Aenea seo lees Be \eteaccace eee Me ellie bei | Serge eee WHEE n Gane: Codbrren 2 asi vn UGB OT aa [ccenctennt lrers tat | 3 | | Bostous lam bone... 4a. GGSs pee ee Reet eee lear | See eee ete 1 @apelCod' Bayan... ). 25: 1700 n | Martha’s Vineyard....... NOB Nico eaee 3 | | Ipswich) Bayne see ao: AO Gia eee teal sere ual Sc, acted [ae Al AD el ata | eee ere eal eas ae n Boston Harbor........... 7D 7a hSceter| beats ole aeeese Seager: Pt eae |S antes |e tS | eta ee 1 ruriiiey Pye seks hahine ss (TAP Isso esers Se ees 2p ees Core Enea Pee Cee [esate a al IDM OWA o ee eo oeeas ola aan aie 12 Ae eases ell MPs ec ee ne Pech ov cca r ae ie eee Meters |ereat eeerede [ane a ae 1 Off Provincetown......... GIO |aataliesees | Dem ies» | TMAVER OG: cto.a Seas oles cicero 75) Ne aoa | | INamtuekets s 25-04. sceces- TIESTO Dsl eeieeetce sees eee een | 3+n BORG IBERY. ogc ane acason ISSA lee to otal Montene a toc ered (asain eal Off Providence, R.I....... 1B2OH |e rt irae ey | Off Newburyport......... [ljstsv| ee rareAtel lareecgatiel earteree \eseere stare SLA lls rahe Seah crs tae Of @hathamirrenereeeee ee SAB alles eels Vaxenaheets Fears (eee |e Off Plymouth............ (SASS ae ea eae: Wen. | Provincetown Harbor. .... 1850 Vig le Ru ae aie heer Ieee ee al eee Le le 3 lee eae lil Massachusetts Bay....... S521 Beer Worcoo Geers ne es losers | Hp Wis eM Arar lew ell ene Provincetown Harbor... .. SESE Sao escola ee eset | De || | | Sandwich Harbor......... SI atte Alls ots eral ear oes el erica a ebro] eta lk rapier Me Werther ase | Provincetown Harbor... . . 1858 Jowvse-[eeeee [ewes eefoeeees | Pot eee ee ewe | PESO ae | 1 INantucketseeee 544-3 SG | ee ees | renee |e ee ta [aa rele sikelneea! cea Maal ee | 1 INamtueket sents uae. US GAS Weer ns Likes Seren | eet Seer. oes ees | FN el eel ee A ae Espey pes tet foc Near Provincetown....... 1S Oe 8 Saal later coca Pere eee eel a || Provincetown Harbor... .. ISAO) ere ciel ieee he | INantucke tee Gnas wane et TRSW AG IS 85 bee olor cia ol bier terdc Eisrcee nl Aret an np seein reac one eae ee 1 Il Nant cle tiene erste. Saige erie ra cpece heals stsoes = ie BEE 8 Weir aula Aina. Nes a elle eect pall (Char Weller licks gospel INO | Sanécllnoanedeoemre | 2% | | | Off Siasconsets)..........- TREES GY let ie neal lo | Fee | Pac te 1 | | | Massachusetts Bay.......| 1888 |...... eg nelle tea [eee | 2 | | Georresibankse epee LSSSe nee. as ele eae hal | | | Off Provincetown......... \ISSS) teem Weaetecroace | enzentegs | bike 5 | Soe 2 | | INamtucketesee = ayaa. Ha OS1pH ie es Leese, scales em || INabamnte eet eae os NAUSO5 I elerce obec ne a Aa | | INamtucketie his cece: SO Mal Peer all Matese |e Son - h Provincetown Harbor... .. 1909 1 OfiMuskegetsreit cr oe | IONE esq one case | ree Sian De 2 | : | PS Sas || Reed eee a | RO tal sea wepe a acters. Si ae 2+n | 6 | 5 L+5n 9 OO 1 | 3 | 8 |3+2n 142 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. began to ‘‘look out for fish” about the middle of that month. In October, 1688, a whale proba- bly Eubalaena, was killed in Boston Harbor, and two others, probably also Eubalaena, in October, 1852, but otherwise, the earliest specific instances for its appearance in our waters in fall seem to be those given above for 1850, 1876, and 1877, when single individuals were noted during the first few days of November. The figures show that in this month and in December they were present in some numbers. Probably most of them were leisurely follow- ing the coast to more southerly latitudes, so that by January there is an apparent falling off, which in our table, owing to the paucity of entries, is perhaps more than normally evident. It is significant, however, that the addition of the Long Island records above detailed hardly changes the total for this month. The decrease after December no doubt indicates an actual migratory movement to the south, and is in accord with the statement of Dudley * in 1725, that in the fall of the year the Right Whales go westward, following the general trend of the shore. It seems that already by December this species used to appear off the coasts of Delaware, and probably wintered regularly as far south as the Bermuda Islands and the coasts of South Carolina. In the latter region they probably reached their general southern limit, and in this were doubtless influenced by the warm Gulf Stream waters which turn eastward away from the shore at about this latitude. Manigault (Proc. Elliott Soc., 1886, vol. 2, p. 98-104) describes a Right Whale killed in January, 1880, in Charleston Harbor, S. C., and a second shortly after was cast ashore on Sullivan’s Island, $8. C. A third was captured off the harbor of Port Royal, S. C., in February, 1884, and a fourth off Cape Lookout, North Carolina, Mar. 20, 1894. These are all therefore wintering animals. Some numbers must have wintered as far north as Massachusetts Bay, but probably the greater part move to the south of Cape Cod after December. An instance of the supposed wintering of a Right Whale in Boston Bay is noted in 1895. What was believed to be the same individual was said to have appeared near Hull in early October, 1894, and after having been repeatedly seen in that vicinity during the succeeding months was finally killed near Nahant in the following March. The evidence does not seem wholly satisfactory that the October animal was even a Right Whale, but yet the story may be essentially true. After January comes a distinct increase in the number reported in the Massachusetts and neighboring waters. This increase apparently took place from about the middle of Febru- ary on, and it may be supposed that the northward migration of these whales had then already begun. In March and April the numbers increase, so that in the latter month they seem more numerous than at any other period of the year, along the southern coasts of both Massachusetts and Long Island. The reason for this is apparent; for in following the trend of our coast south- ward in fall, they must in part pass well out to sea beyond Cape Cod, but in returning north- 1 Phil. Trans. Roy. Soe. London, Abridged, 1734, vol. 7, pt. 3, p. 426. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 143 ward along the coasts of the central Atlantic States they are turned abruptly eastward by the outjutting mass of Long Island and the promontory ending in the elbow of Cape Cod. This barrier forms slightly more than a right angle with the general coastline to the south, and extends northeasterly for nearly five degrees of longitude or 250 miles. In passing north- ward therefore, a great part of the whales in a belt 250 miles in width, are turned to the eastward and converge on the south and east shores of Long Island and Massachusetts to round Cape Cod. That this period of greatest abundance was the same in former times as well as during the last hundred or more years, is evidenced also by the statement of Dudley, in 1725, previ- ously quoted, that ‘‘in the Spring they are headed Eastward,” and that “the true [7. e. best] Season for the right or Whalebone Whale, is from the Beginning of February, to the End of May.” If a more or less steady continuance in this same direction were maintained it would result in comparatively few Right Whales reaching the northern part of the Gulf of Maine, just as in fall, the Nova Scotia peninsula would perhaps guide them off from those waters. This may in some measure account for their apparent absence or scarcity on the shores of northern New England. The more frequent appearance of whales in ‘schools,’ in the spring of the year may mean nothing more than this convergence of the lines of movement on our southern shores. Thus on April 10, 1800, a number of whales appear off Nantucket; again in the middle of May, 1826, a small school is found off eastern Long Island; five whales are killed off the same coast in one day in April of 1847; a considerable number are off Plymouth in mid-April, 1848; finally in mid-April of 1886, a small school of Right Whales appears off Tuckernuck and Nantucket, and near the end of the month the same or a second school, consisting of some twenty-five whales, the largest number together of which there is any record in our bounds for probably over a century. During the greater part of May the northeastward movement is continued, but is normally over by the middle of the month, for the records are very few indeed after the third week. The only June record that I have found of the Right Whale in our waters, is of a large cow with her calf, both of which were killed off Cape Cod early in the first week of June, 1888. It is without the scope of the present paper to trace the northward course of the Right Whales after they have left our coasts in May. Suffice it to say that they seek the waters off the Grand Banks and thence northeasterly, even to Iceland. They appear to avoid the Newfoundland waters, and are not taken at the whaling stations there. They were formerly common in Iceland waters and according to Buchet (1895) and Collett (1909) they have again appeared in small numbers of recent years, usually in June and July. It should be noted, how- ever, that those animals in the seas east of Iceland are quite likely the same that winter on the coasts of southern Europe. They were formerly common in the vicinity of the North Cape of Norway, whence the name ‘ Nordkaper,’ applied by the whalers of those seas. The reason of this seasonal migration of the Right Whale is not yet known. It is unlikely 144 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. that temperature is the direct cause, as some have supposed, and that the whales retire from the colder water of the north in order to seek warmer seas to the south. The thick coating of blubber must tend to protect the whale from extremes of temperature. More likely the ques- tion of temperature is indirectly of importance as it affects the animal life on which the whale feeds, so that more exact data as to the food of this species would probably be helpful in deter- mining the cause for its migrations. The supposed retirement of the pregnant females to the quiet bays of more southern latitudes in order there to bring forth their young, seems also an insufficient reason, since both sexes migrate equally, and the quiet bays are hardly frequented by these animals. As already mentioned the small shrimp, Thysanoéssa inermis, on which this whale is known to feed, has been found in January on at least two oceasions, in the Wood’s Hole region, whereas Bigelow (1914) failed to find it at all during extensive towing operations carried on in July and August in various parts of the Gulf of Maine. It is common in more northern waters in summer, however. These facts may indicate that the Right Whale’s migra- tions are undertaken in the pursuit of this crustacean, which is found in our waters in the colder months, but is apparently absent from them in summer. Fossil Remains.— Although bones of whalebone whales are of “not infrequent occurrence ” 1 and may on the less elevated terraces of the Pleistocene period on the Lower St. Lawrence, represent perhaps three genera, there are but few records of the discovery of such remains within the limits of New England. Several vertebrae, considered “‘to be those of a Cetacean”’ were ‘ dug up in a clay stratum, near the bed of a small stream in Machias, Me.,....at the depth of about eight feet” nearly seventy years ago.” These were presented to the Society in its early days, and, in 1847, were submitted to Count Pourtalés for report, but there is no record of them further, nor is any indication given as to their identity. Since other fossils from these clays are of a comparatively recent type, it is probable that if they were really cetacean, they were of some living species. Through the kindness of the authorities of the Peabody Museum at Salem, Mass., I have lately examined a large rib of Eubalaena in an excellent state of preservation, which was dug up at Newburyport, Mass., a few years since. The label indicates that it was found five feet under ground, but there is no record of the exact spot nor of the nature of the soil. It shows no appearance of great age and is very likely modern. The two portions (for the lower end is broken off) together measure 75 inches along the outer curve. In a previous century, Zaccheus Macy of Nantucket, writing to the Massachusetts Histori- cal Society * under date of October 10th, 1792, says that ‘‘one time when the old men were digging a well at the stage called Siasconset, it is said, they found a whale’s bone near thirty feet below the face of the earth, which things are past our accounting for.” * 1 Dawson, J. W. Canadian Nat., 1883, new ser., vol. 10, p. 385. 2 (Jackson, C. T.) Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 1847, vol. 2, p. 255. 3 Macy, O. History of Nantucket, 1835, p. 263. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 145 The occurrence of remains of modern species of large Cetacea in our Pleistocene clays, especially those of Vermont and southern Maine, is to be looked for, in association with those of the White Whale, the Walrus, and sundry mollusks already known from those formations. New England Right Whale Fishery. The Right Whale fishery on the New England coast, at one time a regular and lucrative pursuit, has long since ceased to exist except in the most casual way. From the time of the settlement of Plymouth for a hundred years, it employed many small boats and a large pro- portion of the settlers at certain times of the year when the whales were to be found along the shores. The accounts of this important industry that have come down to us are barely sufficient to reconstruct an outline of it. As the whales became less frequent in the nearer waters, larger craft were fitted out for taking them at sea. At first these vessels made cruises of only a few days at most, but gradually they fared farther and farther from the home ports in pursuit of both Right and Sperm Whales, and even to the arctic ice for the Bowhead. Thus began to develop the whaling industry of Nantucket and New Bedford, the importance of which it is difficult to estimate, not alone on account of the fortunes made by the ship owners, but because of the training in seamanship that helped to establish the future nation’s naval prestige. The rise and development of American whaling has been often traced, and need not here concern us. The American Indians probably attacked the whale but seldom. An occasional dead one cast on shore, was nevertheless much appreciated by their hardy stomachs. Thus good Roger Williams of Rhode Island, in his Key into the Language of America, printed in 1643, defines the word ‘“‘Potop; the whale,’ and adds: “In some places whales are often cast up. I have seen some of them, but not above sixtie foot long. The natives cut them in several parcels, and give and send them far and near, for an acceptable present or dish’? (Coll. Mass. Hist. Soe., 1810, ser. 1, vol. 3, p. 224). Bartholomew Gosnold in the last of May, 1602, found at the north end of Cuttyhunk Island, Mass., ‘‘many huge bones and ribbes of whales,” the remains, perhaps, of such as had drifted ashore or been killed by the aborigines. The Indian shell heaps on the Maine coast have also yielded a few portions of whale bones, to indicate that the natives occasionally feasted on whale meat. In Rosier’s Relation of Waymouth’s Voyage to the Coast of Maine, 1605 (republished by the Gorges Society, 1887, p. 158) is a quaintly worded account of aboriginal whaling by the New England Indians: ‘‘One especiall thing is their manner of killing the Whale, which they call Powdawe [in the Abenaki tongue, the editor explains, this signifies ‘he blows’ — the Abenaki for whale is ‘Pudébé’] and will describe his forme; how he bloweth vp the water and that he is 12 fathoms long; and that they [the Indians] go in company of their King with a multitude of their boats, and strike him with a bone made in fashion of a harping iron fastened 146 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. to a rope, which they make great and strong of the barke of trees, which they veare out after him; then all their boats come about him, and as he riseth aboue water, with their arrowes they shoot him to death; when they haue killed him & dragged him to shore, they call all their chiefe lords together, & sing a song of joy: and those chiefe lords, whom they call Sagamos, divide the spoile, and giue to euery man a share, which pieces so distributed they hang vp about their houses for prouision: and when they boile them, they blow off the fat, and put to their peaze, maiz, and other pulse, which they eat.” The species of whale thus killed by the Indians is not indicated, but it is unlikely that they could attempt the capture of any but Right Whales, which were the least difficult to overcome. Doubtless a log of wood was fastened as a drag to the rope which the Indians ‘‘veared out”’ on striking the whale. An absurd relation by Joseph de Acosta, in 1590, of a supposed method of capturing whales by the Indians of Florida, gained currency, and long was quoted in the old works on natural history, to the effect that the Indian approached the sleeping whale in his canoe and drove a wooden stake into each of its nostrils, after which he continued to bestride his quarry till its struggles ceased, and then towed it ashore. A cleverly executed engraving illustrative of this strange story was published in the same year by Theodore de Brie in his Collectiones Pere- grinationum in Indiam Orientalem et Occidentalem (Frankfurt am Main, 1590). The figures appear to represent Right Whales. Early Whaling at Cape Cod and Massachusetts Bay.— When the historic Mayflower ‘ rounded Cape Cod into Massachusetts Bay, she carried on board a “master and his mate, and others, experienced in fishing’? who greatly regretted their lack of proper tackle for the taking of the whales that daily came about their ship. Bradford’s Journal informs us that these people intended the following year to ‘‘fish for whale here,’’ but with what success we are not informed, if indeed the project was carried out at that time. That the whales were then (December, 1620) common and that their value was appreciated by our forefathers, is further shown in Bradford’s remark that ‘‘we saw daily great whales [at Cape Cod], of the best kind for oil and bone, come close aboard our ship, and, in fair weather, swim and play about us.” Evi- dently these were Right Whales, since the quality of their oil and ‘bone’ was well known to the seamen. The narrator adds: ‘‘There was once one, when the sun shone warm, came and lay above water, as if she had been dead, for a good while together, within half a musket shot of the ship; at which two were prepared to shoot, to see whether she would stir or no. He that gave fire first, his musket flew in pieces, both stock and barrel; yet, thanks be to God, neither he nor any man else was hurt with it, though many were there about. But when the whale saw her time, she gave a snuff, and away.’’' So ended the first attempt of the Pilgrims to capture whales in New England. In 1629, Higgeson, ‘‘a Reverend Divine,” mentions in his account of the “commodities” 1 Young, Alexander. Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1844, p. 146.” NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 147 ' Higgeson lived at Salem. Richard of New England “great store of whales, and crampusse.”’ Mather, who came to Massachusetts Bay in 1635, likewise tells of ‘“‘mighty whales spewing up water in the air, like the smoke of a chimney, and making the sea about them white and hoary, as is said in Job, of such incredible bigness that I will never wonder that the body of Jonas could be in the belly of a whale” (Sabine’s Report, p. 42).2. Starbuck shows that one of the motives for the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was the promise of a good return from the fisheries, and in the original charter the colonists were “given and graunted ....all fishes soever that shall at any tyme hereafter be taken in or within the saide seas or waters.’”’ The royal fishes, whales, balan, sturgeons, and other fishes, of what kinde or nature Massachusetts colonists were quick to avail themselves of such whales as were drifted to their shores. Thus, John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony writes that in April, 1635, ‘some of our people went to Cape Cod, and made some oil of a whale, which was cast on shore. There were three or four cast up, as it seems there is almost every year.’”’ * These were proba- bly Right Whales, at this season moving northward, and the amount of oil yielded was thus sufficient to induce the people to sail across the Bay to render it. Concerning the capture of whales on our coasts previous to 1650, no record appears to have come down to us. There is an old poem on New England written by William Morrell, who came to Plymouth in 1623. It was published in London, on his return to England, and implies that whales were already an object of pursuit on our shores, for “The mighty whale doth in these harbours lye, “Whose oyle the careful mearchant deare will buy.’ * Certain it is, however, that Right Whales were common in their season, and that the colonists were beginning to make serious efforts for their capture. This is evident from the frequent orders of the General Court concerning the granting of fishing privileges, and the many refer- ences to ‘drift’ whales which after being harpooned, had escaped, only to die and drift ashore. Controversy waxed high over the title to possession of such ‘drift fish,’ for it has ever been the whaleman’s law that he who first struck the whale has the prior claim. If, therefore, such title could not be shown, either by the identification of the harpoon (marked so as to be known) or by some other sign, then the finder of the dead animal was entitled to all or part of his find. It is clear that for some time previous to 1650 the settlers of Cape Cod and Massachu- setts Bay undertook to carry out the intention of the Mayflower’s master, ‘‘to fish for whale 1 New-Englands Plantation. Ora short and true Description of the Commodities and Discommodities of that countrey. Written in the year 1629, by Mr. Higgeson, a Reverend Divine, now there resident. Reprinted in Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1806, ser. 1, vol. 1, p. 119. 2Starbuck, A. History of the American whale fishery. Rept. U.S. Comm. Fish and Fisheries for 1875-6, 1878, p. 5. 3 Winthrop, John. History of New England from 1630 to 1649, 1825, vol. 1, p. 157. 4 Reprinted in Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1806, ser. 1, vol. 1, p. 130. 148 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. here.”’ In the decade following 1650, the Court records show frequent suits for the adjudica- tion of the claims of rival whalers; moreover, the fact that at this time the General Courts of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies began to formulate regulations for the pre- vention of strife and misunderstanding over the ownership of dead whales, is evidence that the industry was then beginning to flourish and that numerous whales were killed. Even at this early date, it appears that the Government claimed a portion of the oil of whales cast on shore within the bounds of the Colony. So in 1652, ‘‘Mr. Howes” was appointed ‘“‘to receive the oil of the country” for the town of Yarmouth, Mass.! At the same time it was ordered by the town of Sandwich, Mass., ‘‘that Edmund Freeman, Edward Perry, Geo. Allen, Daniel Wing, John Ellis, and Thos. Tobey, these six men, shall take care of all the fish lincluding whales and ‘grampuses’| that Indians shall cut up within the limits of the town, so as to provide safety for it, and shall dispose of the fish for the town’s use; also that if any man that is an inhabitant shall find a whale and report it to any of these six men, he shall have a double share; and that these six men shall take care to provide laborers and what- ever is needful, so that whatever whales either Indian or white man gives notice of, they may dispose of the proceeds to the town’s use, to be divided equally to every inhabitant.” * Appar- ently it was not long before a misunderstanding arose as to the legal definition of the phrase “every inhabitant,” for in the following year, 1653, the town ruled ‘‘that the pay of all whales shall belong to every householder and to every young man that is his own, equally.” This method of sharing the proceeds of drift whales seems to have met with small favor, or per- chance certain shrewd citizens thought to make a greater personal profit from such occasional finds, for in the same year, September 13, 1653, it was further ordered ‘‘that Richard Chad- well, Thos. Dexter, and John Ellis, these three men, shall have all the whales that come up within the limits and bounds of Sandwich, they paying to the town for the sd. fish £16 a whale.”’ It was also ‘‘provided that if any of these three men have notice given them by any person who has seen a whale ashore or aground and has placed an oar by the whale, his oath may, if required, be taken for the truth and certainty of the thing, and the sd. three persons shall be held liable to pay for the sd. whale although they neglect to go with him that brings the word. And if they do not go with him, then sd. person shall hold the sd. whale, and by giving notice to any third shall have paid him for his care herein £1. [The whale then evidently becomes town property.| And in case there come ashore any part of a whale, these four men, Mr. Dil- lingham, Mr. Edmund Freeman, Edward Perry, and Michael Blackwell, are to be the judges of the whale before it shall be cut off from, to determine the quantity less a whole whale; and then, without allowing further word, those three men, viz.: Rd. Chadwell, Thos. Dexter, and John Ellis, shall make payment for sd. whale, 3 in oil, in corn, and 3 in cattle, all market- 1Swift, C. F. History of Old Yarmouth, 1884, p. 84. 2? Freeman, F. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol. 2, p. 50. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 149 able, at current prices.” ' It is clear that the chief purpose of these regulations was to insure that the town received a certain amount from the proceeds of each whale or part thereof for the public treasury. The aforementioned John Ellis seems to have had a great liking for this whale enterprise, for again in 1659, six years after, he is appointed together with one James Skiff “to take care of the whales and all other fish that yield oil in quantity,” and later, the town sold to him “the right of all such fish coming within the limits and bounds of the town the next three years.” At this time, too, there appears, among the list of subscriptions for building a new meeting house, the item: ‘Rec. also in Oil £3.3.10,” no doubt part of the proceeds of some whale killed or stranded on the Sandwich shore.” In the Massachusetts Bay Colony at this period, it was apparently the law that one third of the oil of drift whales became the property of the Crown, one third went to the town, and the remainder to the finders of the whale. This is evidenced from the Court records of May 14, 1654, wherein it appears that ‘“‘an account concerning a whale taken at Weimouth being presented to this Courte, itt is referred to the auditor gennerall to pervse the accompt, and examine what is due to the countrje, all charges being deducted, and orders that what vppon examination shallbe found due, the countrje shall haue one third pte, the towne of Weimouth another third pte, and the finders the other third pte.’ * In addition to these regulations for determining in general the rights of persons finding stranded whales on the shores, it soon became necessary to define the title to such whales as were cast up on the bounds of private homesteads. So, in the Court Records of June 6, 1654, it is ordered for the Plymouth Colony, ‘‘that whatsoeuer whales or blubber shalbee cast vp against the lands of the purchasers, that the proprietie thereof shalbelonge vnto the said pur- chasers accordingly as vnto any of the pticulare townshipps when such whales or blubber fales within any of theire precincts.””* That is, apparently, that the whale was considered the property of the land owner, who nevertheless, was to pay one third of the oil to the Crown. It is to be inferred that the method of appointing certain persons to attend to the saving of the oil of these ‘drift’ whales was commonly resorted to by most of the towns of the Plymouth Colony at least. As in the case of the citizens of Sandwich, such persons paid to the town a certain amount for the local monopoly of this privilege. This arrangement, however, seems at times to have aroused the cupidity of the less fortunate colonists, for in the Judicial Acts of the Plymouth Colony’ in 1662, we find that ‘‘Thomas Howes, Sen", and Robert Denis, complaineth in the behalfe of themselues and the rest of theire naighbours, whoe by towne order are to haue theire shares of the whales this yeare, w" by Gods providence are or shalbee 1 Freeman, F. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol. 2, p. 51. 2 Tbid., p. 62. * Records of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1854, vol. 4, pt. 2, p. 191. 4 Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, 1855, vol. 3, p. 53. 5 Tbid, 1857, vol. 7, p. 106. 150 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. cast vp within theire townshipes, against Wallan Nicarson, Seni", in an action of treaspas on the case, to the damage of forty pounds, for vnjust molestation in vnjust attachment of the blubber of a whale belonging to the said complainants. The jury find for the plaintiffes ten pounds damage, and the cost of the suite. Judgment graunted.”’ The ground for William Nicarson’s trespass does not appear, but it is likely that he believed the whale to be one that he had previously wounded, and so was loath to relinquish title to it when ‘‘by God’s provi- b) dence,”’ it drifted ashore. It is hardly to be doubted that most of these ‘drift fish’ had first been harpooned, so that the whalers naturally resented the claim of a third of the oil by the Crown, if they subsequently regained the lost carcass. This exorbitant tax was doubtless the cause for a protest before the General Court of March 4, 1661, in which the agents for the town of Yarmouth appeared in behalf of their own town, as well as of Barnstable, Sandwich, and Eastham, to ‘debate and determine a difference between them and others about whales.” It appears that the matter was not settled at that time, although the Court endeavored to effect some sort of a compro- mise. The four towns stoutly refused to pay what they considered an unjust tax, so that six months later, on October 1, 1661, the Colonial Treasurer, to whom the Court seems finally to have entrusted the whole affair, sent the following circular letter to the citizens concerned: “Toueing Frinds: Whereas the Generall Court was pleased to make some propositions to you respecting the drift fish or whales; and incase you should refuse their proffer, they im- powered mee, though vnfitt, to farme out what should belonge vnto them on that account; and seeing the time is expired, and it fales into my hands to dispose of, I doe therefore, with the advise of the Court, in answare to youer remonstrance, say, that if you will duely and trewly pay to the countrey for euery whale that shall come, one hogshead of oyle att Boston, where I shall appoint, and that current and marchantable, without any charge or trouble to the countrey,— I say, for peace and quictnes, you shall haue it for this present season, leaueing you and the Election Court to settle it soe as it may bee to satisfaction on both sides; and incase you accept not of this tender, to send it [7. e. their refusal] within fourteen days after date hereof; and if I heare not from you, I shall take it for graunted that you will accept of it, and shall expect the accomplishment of the same. “Youers to vse, Constant Southworth, Treasu.”’ ! The record shows that this proposal was accepted and an agreement signed by the repre- sentatives of Yarmouth. In this same year, 1661, a citizen of Eastham was fined by the magistrate one pound sterling for ‘‘lying about a whale’’! ” The agreement just recited appears to have met with approval and was duly enacted as 1 Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, 1855, vol. 4, p. 6. 2 Freeman, F. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol. 2, p. 361. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. lol alaw. For in the following year, under date of June 3, 1662, the General Court of Plymouth Colony ordered that for every whale cast ashore, or cut up at sea and brought on shore, one full hogshead of oil was to be paid at Boston by the towns or persons ‘‘as are Interested in the lands where they fall or shall soe cutt vp any fish at sea.’’ If the “‘ffish”’ were torn or “‘wasted”’ so that one fourth of it were gone, then only one half a hogshead of oil was to be paid, and nothing if more than half the creature were lost. Probably it was to determine the proportion of oil due from some such damaged carcass, that, in 1672, “‘in reference vnto a whale brought on shore to Yarmouth from sea, the Court’ leaues it to the Treasurer to make abatement of what is due to the countrey therof, by law, as hee shall see cause, when hee treated with those that brought it on shore.” ! Freeman’ mentions an old Indian deed of January 15, 1679, confirmatory of the early purchase of Woods Hole, which stipulates that in consideration of the granting of certain lands, the Indian, Job Notantico, is to have “liberty to cut sticks and wood on the commons, the fins and tails of whales cast ashore on the neck” at Falmouth. This indicates not only the fre- queney with which whales were thus cast ashore, but perhaps also the industry of the people in thoroughly trying out the entire carcass, leaving only ‘‘fins and tails [=whalebone]” for Poor Lo. Later, at all events, it is certain that the carcass was usually abandoned after the blubber and whalebone were removed. The people of Cape Cod at this time seem to have been carrying on their operations with much vigor. So frequently did dead whales come ashore that regulations were passed to provide at once for their safe disposal so that the country, the town, and other parties in- terested should in due course have their rightful share of the proceeds. So in February, 1680, the town of Yarmouth portioned out its shore into three sections and to each allotted four or five men to secure such whales as stranded within the several sections, fixing at the same time the remuneration for this public service. The record runs: ‘‘ Agreed with our neighbours under- written in their several bounds, to look out for and secure the town all such whales as by God’s providence shall be cast up in their several bounds, for the sum of £4 a whale, to be paid in blubber or oil, till the town see cause to alter the manner: Paul Sears, Sam Worden, Silas Sears, John Burge, Annanias Wing, from Sawtucket to Sawsuit Harbor mouth. Joseph Howes, Sam Howes, John Hall, Jere. Howes, from Sawsuit to Yarmouth Harbor. John Rider, John Hallet, John Hawes, Capt. Thacher, from Yarmouth Harbor to the Mill Creek; and they are to have £5 for every whale that is cut up betwixt Gray’s Beach and the Mill Creek, as afore- said.” * At Sandwich, in 1681, we find a committee appointed “to make sale of the whales that are lately cast ashore in the harbor; and it was agreed that Joseph Holway and those 1Crapo, W. W. Centennial in New Bedford, 1876, p. 66. ? Freeman, I’. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol. 2, p. 427. ’ Swift, F. C. History of Old Yarmouth, Mass., 1884, p. 109. 152 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. with him in cutting-up the whales, shall have that part they have already cut and secured, on paying £6 silver money to the town.”’’ This implies of course, that the regulation was still effective making drift whales the town property, with the exception, however, of the barrel of oil from each whale due the Colony. In the following year, December 8, 1682, it was ordered by the town, ‘‘that whales that come ashore, and other great fish that yield any quantity of oil, be given to Thomas Tupper, Geo. Allen, Caleb Allen, and Sam’l Briggs, for ten years, for one half the oil delivered at the dock in good casks — they to pay a barrel of oil out of every whale, to the country according to the order of court’’ (see antea, 1662). No doubt much of the oil received by the Crown from such drift whales was sent to England for home consumption. At all events, Treasurer Samuel Sewall’s accounts (in the Sewall papers of the Massachusetts Historical Society’s Collections) show that in 1681 and thereabouts, he was regularly sending whale oil by packet boat to London. As elsewhere noted, the Nantucket whalers seem not to have made such shipments on their own account for nearly forty years after. The Whale-viewer.— Strife as to the rights of ownership of whales seems to have continued unabated, so that in March of 1688, the colony of Massachusetts Bay established the following regulations, quaintly worded and misspelled: ‘‘furst: if aney pursons shall find a Dead whael on the streem And have the opportunity to toss herr on shoure; then ye owners to alow them twenty shillings; 2ly: if thay cast hur out & secure ye blubber & bone then ye owners to pay them for it 30s (that is if ye whael ware lickly to be loast;) 3ly, if it proves a floate son not killed by men then ye Admirall to Doe thaire in as he shall please; — 4ly; that no persons shall presume to cut up any whael till she be vewed by toe persons not consarned; that so ye Right owners may not be Rongged of such whael or whaels; 5ly, that no whael shall be need- lessly or fouellishly lansed behind ye vitall to avoid stroy; 6ly, that each companys harping Iron & lance be Distinckly marked on ye heads & socketts with a poblick mark: to ye preven- tion of strife; 7ly, that if a whale or whalls be found & no Iron in them: then they that lay ye neerest claime to them by thaire strokes & ye natoral markes to haue them; Sly, if 2 or 3 ” 3 By these regulations, were es- companyes lay equal claimes, then thay equelly to shear. tablished legal rates for salvage of ‘drift’ whales, a system of marking harpoons and lances for their future identification by the rightful owners of the dead whales, and the appointment of two persons to act in some measure as referees in all cases of dispute. Two years later, the people of Cape Cod adopted a somewhat similar set of regulations, and at a General Court of the Plymouth Colony, November 4, 1690, we find it ‘‘ordered, that for the prevention of contests and suits by whale killers,— “1. This Court doth order, that all whales killed or wounded by any man « left at sea, 1 Freeman, I’. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol. 1, p. 73. 2 Tbid., p. 75. 3 Mass. Colonial MSS., Treasury, vol. 3, p. 80; quoted by Starbuck, Rept. U.S. Comm. Fish and Fisheries, 1878, p. 8. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 153 s’ whale killers that killed or wounded s? whale shall presently repaire to some prudent person whome the Court shall appoint, and there give in the wounds of s! whale, the time & place when & where killed or wounded; and s? person so appointed shall presently comitt it to record, and his record shall be allowed good testimony in law. “9. That all whales brought or cast on shore shall be viewed by the person so appointed, or his deputy, before they are cut or any way defaced after come or brought on shore, and s’ viewer shall take a particular record of the wounds of s* whale, & time & place when & where brought on shore; «& his record shall be good testimony in law, and s’ viewer shall take care for securing s‘ fish for the owner.” This same court order further provides that any person finding a ‘drift’ whale ‘‘on the stream, a mile from the shore, not appearing to be killed by any man,” may secure it to his own use, not omitting, however, to pay “an hogs- head of oyle to y° county for every such whale.” ! Thus was established the office of Whale-viewer, whose duty it was to examine all whales that came ashore within his jurisdiction and to record not only the marks and wounds of these, but those as well of whales that were reported harpooned at sea and escaped, according as the pursuers gave their testimony. By this means it was hoped to identify lost whales, should they subsequently die of their wounds and be east on shore. Such whales would then be made over to their rightful owners, if satisfactory proof could be shown through the record of marks and wounds, for otherwise they became the spoil of the finder or other person appointed for their disposal. That practically all the ‘drift’ whales were such as had been previously wounded is in itself eminently probable, and is further shown by contemporary evidence, for Weeden * tells us that ‘‘as early as 1681, Andros reported that very few whales were driven on shore, unless proved to have been struck by the fishermen.” Following its order of November 6, 1690, the General Court appointed ‘‘to view and inspect whales,” Mr. Skiff of Sandwich, and Captain Lothrop of Barnstable.’ In the same year, “John Wadsworth was appointed to view whales, that may be cast ashore in the town” of Duxbury.‘ It is plain from these occasional fragments, that many whales were annually killed on the Massachusetts coast, and that a great number were struck and lost, only to die of their wounds and later drift to land. The reason for so large a number of lost whales is not evident: whether through insufficient strength of warp and iron, or through lack of skill on the part of the many men employed, an alternative perhaps, hardly to be thought of. Perchance it may have been that the harpoon line was not always managed entirely from the whale boat, but was fastened to drags and thrown 1 Records of the Colony of New Plymouth, 1856, vol. 6, p. 252. 2 Weeden, W. B. Economie and Social History of New England, 1890, vol. 1, p. 435. 3 Freeman, F. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol. 1, p. 323. ‘Winsor, J. History of Duxbury, Mass., 1849, p. 86. 154 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. overside while the boat was held in readiness for a chance to lance the whale when it again came to the surface. There is little, however, to support this view. Probably the whales themselves were so abundant that a great many were struck and it was often deemed better to cut loose from one that gave promise of a long chase, in order to attack others near at hand that perchance, would prove easier prey. In testimony of their abundance, Edward Randolph, in October, 1676, tells the Lords of Trade concerning the resources of the colony at New Plymouth, that ‘‘here is made a good quantity of whale oil, which fish they take upon the coasts.” ! Again, in 1688, he writes home from Massachusetts: ‘“‘ New Plimouth Colony have great profit by whale killing. I believe it will be one of our best returnes, now beaver and peltry fayle us”? (Hutchinson’s Coll., p. 588, quoted by Starbuck, 1878, p. 8). So, too, Cotton Mather, writing in 1697 of the colonists at Plymouth, says: ‘‘They have since passed on to the catching of whales, whose oil is become a staple commodity of the country; — whales, I say, which living and moving islands do find way to this coast, where, notwithstanding the desperate hazards run by the whale-catchers in their whale boats,— often torn to pieces by the strokes of the enraged monsters, yet it has rarely been known that any of them have miscarried.” * Whaling Accidents.— Fatalities did, however, occasionally overtake the whalemen. What was evidently an accident to a boat’s crew of Indians in the pursuit of a whale off the Connecti- cut coasts, is thus referred to by Wait Winthrop of Boston, in a letter to his brother Fitz-John at New London, dated 29 Apl., 1700: ‘‘I am sorry for the accident about the two Indians, who I suppose to be lost tho’ you do not say so, and tis well the others escaped. If there should be any difference about the pumme [i. e. possession] of the whale, I doubt I must com and hold a court of admiralty about it.” ° In the diary of Rev. Simon Bradstreet, of New London, Conn., is a brief mention of the death of one Jonathan Webbe who, in October, 1668, was drowned in Boston Harbor while ‘catching a whale below the Castle. In coiling vp ye line vnadvisedly he did it about his middle thinking the whale to bee dead, but suddenly shee gave a Spring and drew him out of the boat, he being in ye midst of the line, but could not be recovered while he had any life.” Probably the unfortunate man became caught in the harpoon line, though it is unlikely that he ‘‘did it about his middle,” for the diarist adds in a parenthesis: ‘‘Mr. Webb’s death, as after I was better informed, was not altogether so as related.’ * In the Boston News-Letter for December 8, 1712, is an item from Marshfield, Mass., dated November 28: ‘‘On Tuesday, the 25th currant, six men going off the Gurnet Beach in a whale boat at Duxberry after a whale, by reason of the Boisterousness of the sea, oversetting the Boat, 1Crapo, W. W. Centennial in New Bedford, 1876, p. 27. 2Freeman, F. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol. 2, p. 631, footnote. 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1892, ser. 6, vol. 5, p. 61 (Winthrop Papers). ‘ New England Hist. and Geneal. Register, 1855, vol. 9, p. 44. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. #55 they were all drowned.”! Again, in 1716, we learn that Mr. Jonathan Howes, who seems to have been prominent in the whaling enterprise at Yarmouth, “was killed by a whale which he attacked in a boat.’ ? Starbuck * further quotes a petition to the General Court, on file at the Boston State House in which Dinah Coffin, of Nantucket, prays to be allowed to marry again, inasmuch as, two years before, ‘her Husband, Elisha Coffin did on the Twenty Seventh Day of April Annoq Dom: 1722 Sail from sd Island of Nantucket in a sloop: on a whaling trip intending to return in a month or six weeks at most, And Instantly a hard & dismall Storm followed; which in all probability Swallowed him and those with him up: for they were never heard of.” The Boston News-Letter of February 12, 1730 (quoted by Starbuck, 1878, p. 31) contains the record of a similar mishap near Chatham: “There has been a remarkable Providence in the awful death of some of my neighbors; On the day commonly called New Year’s Day a whaleboat’s Crew (which Consists of a Stersman, an Harpineer, and Four Oarmen) coming home from a Place called Hog’s-Back, where they had been on a Whaling design, the Boat was overset, and all the Men lost, on a reaf of Sand that lies out against Billingsgate. When the Boat was found bottom upward, and the Stern post broken off, there were two Chests found in it, which were wedged so fast under the Thwards that the water had not washed them out; in which were found the Pocket books of two of the Men, by which it plainly appears what Boat it was; but none of the Bodies are, as yet found, that I can hear of; tho’ they found an iron Pot, which they had with them, upon the reaf, and discovered the Whaling Irons at the bottom of the Water, where it is about 8 feet deep. ““P. §.— Before I had done writing I had News that two of their Bodies were found.” Of interest further in showing how the whale fishery at Cape Cod offered employment for men all about the Bay, is a brief item in the History of the Town of Hingham, Mass. (1893, vol. 3, p. 53), concerning John Marble, a native of that place, who died in April, 1738, as the record says, “‘suddenly at Cape Cod a whaling, leaving three small children.” An anecdote of early whaling, with less serious outcome, is told by Zaccheus Macy ‘ in his account of Nantucket. ‘It happened once, when there were about thirty boats about six miles from the shore, that the wind came round to the northward, and blew with great violence, attended with snow. The men all rowed hard, but made but little headway. In one of the boats were four Indians and two white men. An old Indian in the head of the boat, perceiving that the crew began to be disheartened, spake out loud in his own tongue... .‘Pull ahead with courage; do not be disheartened; we shall not be lost now; there are too many Englishmen 1 Quoted in J. Winsor: History of Duxbury, Mass., 1849, p. 86. 2 Swift, F.C. History of Old Yarmouth, Mass., 1884, p. 136. § Starbuck, A. Rept. U.S. Comm. Fish and Fisheries, 1878, p. 23, footnote. 4Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1810, ser. 1, vol. 3, p. 157. 156 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND, WHALEBONE WHALES. to be lost now.’ His speaking in this manner gave the crew new courage. They soon per- ceived that they made headway; and after long rowing they all got safe on shore.” The pursuit of whales often carried the shore-whalers well away from land in these early days, and the above instance no doubt reflects what was of frequent occurrence. Many a long, hard pull they had to bring them back to land, and nightfall often caught them ere they made the shore. Samuel West’ refers to an old tradition that “it was common to see a light upon Gay Head in the night time. Others informed me, that their ancestors have told them, that the whalemen used to guide themselves in the night by the lights that were seen upon Gay Head.” These lights were thought to be of supernatural origin, but may have been kindled by the Indians encamped there. Accidents also happened at times to whalemen on land. Thus in the Boston News-Letter of July 23, 1741, it is related that a Mr. Nathaniel Hardy, of Truro, ‘‘an elderly Man of this Place, being at one of the Fry Houses boiling of Oil, he was taken with a fainting Fit, and fell into a large Vessell of boiling hot Oyl, and was scalded in a most miserable Manner.” ? Ministers’ Salaries—— The pious settlers of Plymouth seem to have been not unmindful of Heaven’s benefaction in supplying them so ‘“‘great store” of whales, for in June, 1662, we find that ‘“‘the Court proposeth it as a thing they Judge would bee very comendable and beni- ficiall to the Townes where Gods Providence shall cast any whales; if they should agree to sett apart some p[ar]te of euery such fish or oyle for the Incurragement of an able Godly Minnester amongst them.” * This praiseworthy suggestion evidently found favor among some at least of the towns, for in that same year, 1662, the town of Eastham voted that a part of every whale cast ashore should be appropriated for the support of the ministry.* A number of years later, we find it recorded that in 1702, the town of Sandwich gave to Rev. Roland Cotton “all such drift-whales as shall during the time of his ministry in Sandwich, be driven or cast 995 ashore within the limits of the town, being such as shall not be killed with hands. The same year Rev. John Cotton at Yarmouth received “‘incurragement’’ to the extent ‘‘of £40 in money, of the product of the whale fishes that came to this town the last year,— the town to have 196 the balance. Strife over Drift Whales—— Despite the numerous regulations passed for the prevention of controversy, the strife over drift whales seems to have continued with energy. In 1693, the town of Sandwich was ‘‘in controversy with the Sheriff of the county, ‘he having seized 1 West, Samuel. A Letter concerning Gay Head. Mem. Amer. Acad. Arts and Sci., 1793, vol. 2, p. 150. 2 Quoted by Starbuck, 1878, p. 33. 3 Records of the Colony of New Plymouth, 1861, vol. 11, p. 135. 4 Pratt, E. History of Eastham, Wellfleet, and Orleans, 1844, p. 33. 5 Freeman, F. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol. 2, p. 85. 5 [bid, p. 206. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 157 in right of the Crown two whales on shore at Town-Neck’”! This evidence of friction between the zealous officials of the Crown, and the local whalers is further seen in an earnest and quaintly misspelled communication from a certain William Clapp, who made complaint to Governor Paul Dudley at Boston, that many ‘drift’ whales were unlawfully appropriated by the whalers to their own uses, for he had ‘‘very often every year sien that her maiesty has been very much wronged of har dues by these contry peple and other whall men as coms hear a whallen every year which tacks up drift whals which was neuer killed by any man which fish i understand belongest to har magiesty and had i power i could have seased severl every year.’’” It does not appear, however, that the irate official was given the power he desired to seize such whales for the Crown. Governor Dudley, nevertheless, seems to have taken matters into his own hands, and in 1705 retaliates by seizing certain whales taken by boats, ‘“‘under a Pretence of drift fish.” He refuses to try the questions at common law but decides the matter in the Admiralty.’ Notwithstanding these frequent records of controversy, we are not to suppose that they are more than an occasional discordant echo of an important and flourishing industry. Try-houses, in which the blubber of whales killed was boiled, and the oil prepared, seem to have been set up in many of the towns. A small tax was imposed for this privilege, and in 1701, Constant Freeman and Benjamin Small were appointed a committee on behalf of the town of Truro, ‘‘to look after such persons as shall set up whale-houses, or other houses, upon any of the common or undivided lands belonging to Pamet,’’ and ‘‘to agree with them... .for not less than 1s. per man.’’? As early as 1706, an attempt was made to utilize the carcasses of stranded whales after the blubber was stripped. For in this year certain of the people of Eastham and thereabouts, addressed a petition to the General Court on the behalf of one Thomas Houghton, of Boston, or his assigns, that for the space of ten years, he be allowed the exclusive privilege in New England of carrying off such waste and putting it to some profitable use. This petition sets forth that “‘all or most of us are concerned in fitting out Boats to Catch & take Whales when ye season of ye year Serves: and whereas when wee have taken any whale or whales, our Cus- tom is to cutt them up, and to take away ye fatt and ye Bone of such Whales as are brought in, And afterwards to let ye Rest of ye Boddy of ye Lean of whales Lye on shoar in lowe water to be washt away by ye sea, being of noe vallue nor worth any Thing to us’”’; wherefore it is desired that Houghton apply his ‘discovery’ to the great profit of the people concerned. The Council in granting his patent, stipulates ‘‘that within the space of Four years he shew forth to the Satisfaction of the Govern’ Council & Assembly That his Projection will take effect, 1Freeman, F. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol. 2, p. 82. 2 Tbid., vol. 1, p. 342, footnote. * Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1879, ser. 5, vol. 6, quoted by Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, 1890, vol. 1, p. 436. ‘Freeman, F. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol, 2, p. 543. 158 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. for the rayseing of Salt Petre to supply the province”’!' Nothing more seems to be known of this interesting ‘projection,’ and it is doubtful if anything came of it. Employment of Cape Cod Indians.— So important was the whale fishery in these years that it probably constituted the chief employment of many colonists as well as Indians during the winter season, from November till May. So in 1724-25, during the Indian wars, some of the friendly Indians from Cape Cod were enlisted, but with the express understanding that they be discharged in time for the commencement of the whaling in the fall. ‘‘ Accordingly in 1724, Lieutenant-Governor Dummer, of the Massachusetts Bay, writes to Colonel West- brook; ‘Upon Sight hereof you must forthwith dismiss Cpt. Bournes Comp” of Indians & send them hither in one of the Sloops, That so they may lose no Time for Following the Whale Fish- ery, w"' is agreeable to my Promise made to them at enlisting.’ In a postscript he adds: ‘Let Capt. Bourne come with them to see them safe return’d.’ And again, in 1725, the Secre- tary writes: ‘His Hon" Having promised the Indians enlisted by Cpt. Bourne (being all those of the County of Barnstable) to dismiss them in the Fall that so they attend their Whale Fish- ing; directs that you as soon as you have opportunity to send them up to Boston, in Order to their Return Home, & let none of them be detained on any Pretense whatsoever.’”’? It is gratifying to find at least this slight evidence that our forefathers occasionally dealt truly with their Indian neighbors. | Decline of the Cape Cod Whaling.— The end of the first quarter of the eighteenth century seems to have marked the decline of shore whaling on the coast of New England. Relentless pursuit for nearly a century had finally killed or driven off the whales that frequented our shores. Thus, in the Boston News-Letter of March 20, 1727, is the following very significant item: ‘‘We hear from the Towns on the Cape that the Whale Fishery among them has failed much this Winter, as it has done for several Winters past, but having found out the way of going to Sea Upon that Business, and having had much Success in it, they are now fitting out several Vessels to sail with all Expedition upon that dangerous Design this Spring, more (its tho’t) than have ever been sent out from among them” (quoted by Starbuck, 1878, p. 31). The whalers, as always with seamen, believed that the whales had merely moved to other grounds, and consequently were ready to follow them. As a matter of fact, however, it is probable that the Right Whales of the western North Atlantic were so very greatly reduced in numbers that they have never been able to recover their former abundance. A similar relentless pursuit had nearly exterminated them in the eastern part of the North Atlantic. Of the decline of the whale fishery on our coasts, various echoes are found in items (quoted by Starbuck, 1878, p. 32-34) from files of the Boston News-Letter during these years. Thus in the season of 1737-8, the local whalers at Provincetown had killed up to January 5, 1738, 1 Mass. Col. MSS., Maritime, vol. 4, p. 72-73; quoted by Starbuck, 1878, p. 30-31. 2 Mass. Col. MSS., vol. 2, p. 297; quoted by Starbuck, 1878, p. 31. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 159 but two small whales. By February of the same year, the whalers at Yarmouth had taken but one large whale, the baleen of which was eight or nine feet long. That spring, in order to make up for this loss, a dozen vessels, carrying most of the men of Provincetown fitted out for the fishery in Davis Straits. The following year was hardly more productive: for the entire season’s catch at Cape Cod was six small whales and one large one at Provincetown, and two small ones at Sandwich. As a result, ‘“‘many of the people of Provincetown were in straitened circumstances and much distressed..... Many of them were without money or provisions.” A note in the Boston Post Boy of February, 1739, confirms these statements: ‘‘We have advice from Provinee-Town on Cape Cod, that the whaling season is now over with them, in which there has been taken in that Harbor six small whales and one of a larger size about six foot bone: beside which ’tis said two small whales have been killed at Sandwich which is all that has been done in that business in the whole Bay. ’Tis added, that seven or eight families in Province-Town, among whom are the principal inhabitants, design to remove.... to Casco Bay in the spring” — as a result, we may infer, of the failure of the whale fishery. That so large a proportion of the whales caught at this time were small, is a fact of much interest, and probably indicates that the adults had been nearly extirpated, for the largest whales are ever the ones most keenly sought. The destruction of the adults of course pre- vented a normal increase, and the small animals, too, were hardly allowed to reach maturity. It seems likely that right-whaling was practically abandoned at Cape Cod by 1750. Doug- lass, in 1749, wrote of whales, that “formerly Cape Cod embayed them, but being much dis- turbed....they kept a good offing.” He seems to have accepted the notion then prevalent, that the animals had simply sought other waters. He speaks also of a whale, stranded back of Cape Cod, that yielded 134 barrels of oil and a proportionate weight of bone. ‘‘ This whale was so fat that some poor people tried the muscular flesh, and made 30 bls. of oil’! On February 10, 1755, at Truro, the appearance of a whale in the bay was sufficient to call out the greater part of the male population, so that it became necessary to adjourn until the following day, a town meeting called to hear and act on the reply of a Rev. Caleb Upham, called to that Parish.? In 1757, the town of Eastham ‘‘chose a committee to prosecute the Harwich people for carrying on the whale fishery at Billingsgate,”’ * so that it is clear that the local industry was still surviving at this date. But since there is certain evidence that Humpback Whales were then pursued in those waters, it is unsafe to conjecture how far the Right Whale was therein concerned. It further appears that in 1763 Billingsgate was incorporated with Wellfleet and it was agreed that the two towns should equally enjoy the privileges of whaling and 1Freeman, F. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol. 2, p. 623. 2 Freeman, F. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol. 2, p. 558. 3 Pratt, E. History of Eastham, Wellfleet, and Orleans, 1844, p. 70. 160 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. fishing as before.' Of the whaling, however, there was little left to ‘enjoy.’ The Reverend Mr. Mellen, who in 1794 wrote a Topographical Description of the Town of Barnstable,” said in retrospect, that ‘“‘seventy or eighty years ago, [7. e., about 1714-1724] the whale bay fishery was carried on in boats from the shore, to great advantage: This business employed near two hundred men, for three months of the year, in the fall and beginning of winter. But few whales now come into the bay, and this kind of fishery has for a long time (by this town at least) been given up.”’ Freeman, likewise, recalls that ‘the shores of the Cape were, within the remembrance of persons now [1862] living, strewed in places with huge bones of whales, these remaining unwasted many years. Fifty years back [about 1810], rib-bones set for posts in fencing, was no unusual sight.” * In 1774, ships from Nantucket first crossed the equator in pursuit of whales, and in 1791, the first American whaler rounded Cape Horn into the untried whaling ‘grounds’ of the Pacific. The pursuit of Right Whales on the New England coast was never again taken up in a regular manner. At intervals even to the present day, an occasional solitary specimen or even a small school appears off the shores of Nantucket or the outer portion of Cape Cod, and not infrequently have the fishermen of these coasts given successful pursuit in their small boats with harpoon or bomb-lance. But such occurrences are now the exception, and the people have long since passed to other pursuits. Methods of whaling — While at first whales were pursued in small boats from the shore, the 1662 citation above given in which reference is made to the cutting up of whales at sea, implies that already at that date small vessels were used to pursue the quarry offshore in addi- tion to the whale boats kept in readiness for launching from the beach. Cutting up the whale at sea in calm weather was probably quite as easy a process as towing the great carcass to land. For the Right Whale nearly always floats when dead, and with block and tackle the stripping off of the sheets of blubber must have been comparatively easy. Then too the great body could more readily be rolled over as it floated in the water. The shore whaling was thus supple- mented by the use of sailing vessels of small burthen. The method of stationing watchers along the coast during the whaling season, to give notice to the boat-whalers was much employed on Cape Cod. Thus at Yarmouth, from the earliest period of its history, ‘‘a tract of land has been reserved for the use of the inhabitants, and known as the Whaling Grounds. It is situated in the northwesterly part of the town of Dennis, and is still [1884] held in common by the two towns. There is no record of the laying out of these lands, but by the references made to them in various documents, it appears that they were undoubtedly laid out by the early proprietors. of the town, for a look-out for those watching for whales. In 1713, the 1Freeman, F. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol. 2, p. 361. 2 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1794, ser. 1, vol. 3, p. 12-17. 3’Freeman, F. History of Cape Cod, 1862, vol. 2, p. 623. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 161 proprietors enlarged the reservation by adding about two acres at the West end, doubtless that the whalemen might have a convenient place to fill water. Upon this reservation a house or houses were erected, in which the whalemen lived, and a watch was kept up to notify the crews when the whales appeared....The boats were sometimes manned by the native Indians, who were remarkably well adapted for the business. Mr. Jonathan Howes, a grandson of the first Thomas, derived sufficient profit in one fortunate season’s whaling, with a company of these Indians, to pay for a large two-story house which he built, and which was standing” till about 1864.1 According to Justin Winsor,” ‘“‘schooners, sloops and perhaps larger vessels were engaged in the whale fishery from Duxbury as early as the beginning of the last [7. e., eighteenth] century, and for some years quite a number of the inhabitants were thus employed. Their resort was at first along the shore and between the capes [Cape Ann and Cape Cod]; but by the close of the first quarter of the century they had extended their grounds” even to the coast of Newfound- land and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they probably found also the Arctic Bowhead. Winsor further mentions an old account book of Mr. Joshua Soule of Duxbury, with the memo- randum: ‘Whale vieg [voyage] begun. elisha cob sayled from hear March y° 4, from Ply- mouth y° 7, 1729.” The extent of this cruise may well have been outside of New England waters, but apparently was begun in Massachusetts Bay, at the time when Right Whales were on the coast. In 1725, Paul Dudley of Boston, communicated to the Royal Society an account of the whales of New England with notes on their habits and capture. This was published in the Philosophical Transactions of that year. He says (I quote the 1734 Abridgment): ‘I would take notice of the Boats oure Whale-men use in going from the Shoar after the Whale, They are made of Cedar Clapboards, and so very light, that two Men can conveniently carry them, and yet they are twenty Feet long, and carry six Men, viz. the Harponeer in the Fore-part of the Boat, four Oar-men, and the Steersman. These Boats run very swift, and by reason of their Lightness can be brought on and off, and so kept out of Danger. The Whale is some- times killed with a single Stroke, and yet at other Times she will hold the Whale-men in Play, near half a Day together, with their Lances, and sometimes will get away after they have been lanced and spouted Blood, with Irons in them, and Drugs fastened to them, which are thick Boards about fourteen Inches square. Our People formerly used to kill the Whale near the Shore; but now they go off to sea in Sloops and Whale boats.” * It is evident that the small vessels employed for taking whales at sea, simply stripped the blubber and whalebone and cast the body adrift, for this same writer remarks: ‘‘The Carcases of Whales in the Sea, serve for 1Swift, F.C. History of Old Yarmouth, Mass., 1884, p. 113. 2? Winsor, J. History of Duxbury, Mass., 1849, p. 350. * Dudley, P. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, Abridged, 1734, vol. 7, pt. 3, p. 427. 162 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. Food for Gulls, and other Sea-Fowl, as well as Sharks, for they are not very nice.’’! The use of “Drugs” or drags made of heavy plank and attached so as to be pulled broadside through the water, must have materially aided in tiring out the whale so as to allow of approaching near enough to lance. William Douglass, in his Summary, Historical and Political,... . of the British Settlements in North America (London, 1760, vol. 1, p. 296-298) further describes this ‘‘drudge or stop-water” as a “‘plank of about two feet square, with a stick through its center; to the further end of this stick, is fastened a tow-rope, called the drudge rope, of about fifteen fathom; they lance, after having fastened her by the harpoon, till dead.” For the harpoon line, hempen cord was used. This line or “fast,” according to Douglass, “is a rope of about twenty-five fathom.” In the Boston News-Letter of December 5, 1723, Mr. Peter Butler advertises for sale, at that place, “‘lately imported from London, extraordi- nary good Whale Warps at 16" a Pound, which are made of the finest Hemp, either by the Quoile or less Quantity”? (Starbuck, 1878, p. 34). Early Whaling at Cape Ann.— To the historian J. B. Felt, we are chiefly indebted for what fragmentary references there are as to the early whaling industry at Cape Ann, Massachusetts, and the adjacent waters. He mentions? in his History of Salem, that James Loper of that town, in 1688, petitioned the colonial government of Massachusetts for a patent for making oil. In his petition Loper sets forth that he has been engaged in whale-fishing for twenty- two years, but whether from Salem or elsewhere does not appear. Starbuck, who quotes this incident, is at some pains to show that this is probably not the James Lopar of Long Island whom the people of Nantucket, in 1672, invited to undertake ‘‘a design of Whale Citching” from their shores. As elsewhere mentioned, whaling was carried on in Massachusetts Bay with the aid of small sailing vessels, at least as early as 1662, and it seems certain that these vessels pursued Right Whales in the waters off Cape Ann, and southward. For John Josselyn,’? writing in 1675, describes the Ipswich River, how it “‘issueth forth into a large Bay, (where they fish for Whales) due East over against the Islands of Sholes.”” _ Somewhat later, it appears that vessels cruised from Salem to Cape Cod after these whales, for on March 12, 1692, John Higginson and Timothy Lindall, of Salem, wrote to Nathaniel Thomas: ‘‘We have been jointly concerned in severall whale voyages at Cape Cod, and have sustained greate wrong and injury by the unjust dealing of the inhabitants of those parts, especially in two instances: ye first was when Woodbury and company, in our boates, in the winter of 1690, killed a large whale in Cape Cod harbour. She sank and after rose, went to sea with a harpoon, warp, etc. of ours, which have been in the hands of Nicholas Eldredge. 1 Dudley, P. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, Abridged, 1734, vol. 7, pt. 3, p. 429. 2 Felt, J.B. History of Salem, 1845, vol. 2, p. 224. 8 Josselyn, J. Two Voyages to New England, 1675, reprinted in Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1833, ser. 3, vol. 3, p. 323, NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 163 The second case is this last winter, 1691. William Edds and company, in one of our boates, struck a whale, which came ashore dead, and by ye evidence of the people of Cape Cod was the very whale they killed. The whale was taken away by Thomas Smith of Eastham, and unjustly detained.” ! Thus it seems that the people of Cape Cod rather resented this intru- sion of outsiders into their home waters. In 1700, John Higginson again writes: ‘‘We have a considerable quantitie of whale oil and bone for exportation.” ! Again, under date of December 10, 1706, the same John Higginson of Salem, writes to Symond Epes of Ipswich: ‘“‘I hear a rumor of several whales, that are gotten. I desire you to send me word how much we are concerned in them, and what prospect of a voyage. When they have done, I desire you would take care to secure the boats and utensils belonging to them.’”’’ Apparently the reference is to Right Whales killed from boats off the coast of Ip- swich, and since the whaling season is then just beginning, Mr. Higginson, who appears to be backing the undertaking, is anxious that a vessel should be fitted out for a cruise in the nearer waters. Hence the necessity for securing what “boats and utensils” there may be available. In the following year, September 22, 1707, Mr. Higginson again writes about whale-boats and crews at Ipswich, and remarks, ‘‘ We should be in readiness for the noble sport.’’? As the whaling season was then less than two months off, Mr. Higginson’s foresight is well exemplified. Probably ‘‘Whale Cove” at Rockport owes its name to some incident connected with the capture of the Right Whale there in the early days. Whales occasionally came even into Boston Harbor in Colonial times, and Starbuck makes mention of certain whaling gear that apparently was kept in readiness against the appearance of these animals. In October, 1668, Jonathan Webb, was drowned while capturing a whale “below the Castle” [i. e. Castle Id.],* in Boston Bay, and the Boston newspapers of Decem- ber 12, 1707, describe the pursuit and capture of a whale forty feet long in the harbor, near the back of Noddle’s Island.* Whaling at Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.— At the time of the settlement of Nan- tucket and for many years thereafter Right Whales seem to have been common during their northward and southward passages in the neighboring seas. At first no attempt seems to have been made to capture them, but those that drifted ashore were eagerly seized and utilized. In the middle of the 17th century the Cape Cod colonists had actively undertaken their pur- suit, so that it is not unlikely that the number of ‘drift whales’ that fell to the share of the Nantucketers at this time, was partly an indirect result of their neighbors’ efforts. For many were probably whales that had been struck and lost. The inevitable quarrels over the owner- 1 Felt, J.B. History of Salem, 1845, vol. 2, pp. 224, 225. 2 Felt, J.B. History of Ipswich, Essex and Hamilton, 1834, p. 109. ’ New England Hist. and Geneal. Register, 1855, vol. 9, p. 44. ‘Starbuck, 1878, p. 34. 164 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. ship and partition of these valuable prizes soon made it necessary to enact laws for the pre- vention of such disputes. The Indians, who seem to have been well treated by the Nantucket colonists, co6dperated with them in their efforts to discover and utilize ‘drift’ whales. The records have it that in 1668, the English of Nantucket made ‘‘a bargaine with ye Indians concerning all whales” that should drift to the shores of the island. Subsequently the shores were divided into sections, over which Indian sachems were appointed to oversee the cutting up of stranded whales and to divide the shares. That this method did not always give satis- faction to the rival claimants appears from the record of appeals to the island Courts. So we find in one ease, ‘‘the Court do order that the Rack or drift Whale in the bounds of the bech upon the playnes shall be divided into eight shares,” and that ‘“‘no Rack Whale that com ashore in any sachems bounds shall be cut up until all the masters of the shares that belong to that Whale do com together” implying that even the sachems were not beyond temptation. Some- times the Court went into particulars,’ as when it ordered. ‘“‘that Washaman is to have the head of the drift Whale for his share and Desper is to have halfe along with him.” Again, a jury of six men tried a complaint of the Indian ‘“‘Massaquat against Eleaser Foulger for stealing his Whale.’ The defendant confessed that he “did dispose of the Whale in con- troversie,’ and the Court sentenced him ‘‘to pay for the Whale the summe of four pounds in goods at the usual price of trading.’”’ No doubt the Court in its decisions between Indians and Englishmen, may have been somewhat over lenient towards the latter, but one is hardly prepared to find that a Nantucket Indian, for stealing eighteen slabs of whalebone, was con- demned to serve Thomas Macy for seven years! ” At about 1672 Nantucket undertook its first whaling enterprise. According to Macy, the local tradition had it that a Right Whale of the sort called ‘scrag’ (7. e. runt), came into the harbor and continued there three days. This proved too much for the hunting instinct of the settlers, who wrought a harpoon and with it succeeded in killing the whale. Whales appear to have then been common at certain seasons, especially off the seaward side of the island. The Nantucketers very wisely decided to call to their aid one James Lopar of Long Island, who was granted certain privileges in return for his undertaking to manage a whaling indus- try. The original agreement is given verbatim by Macy °* as follows: “5th 4th mo. 1672 James Lopar doth Ingage to carry on a design of Whale Citching on the Island of Nantucket, that is the said James Ingage to be a third in all respeekes, and som of the Town Ingage Also to Carrey on the other two thirds with him in like manner, the Town doth also Consent, that first one Company shal begin and afterward the rest of the freeholders or any of them, have liberty to set up an other Company Provided that they make a tender 1 Bliss, W.R. Quaint Nantucket, 1896, pp. 11, 12. 2 Thid., p. 70. * Macy, O. History of Nantucket, 1835, p. 28. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 165 to those freeholders that have no share in the first Company and if any refuse, the Rest may go on themselves, and the Town do also Ingage that no other Company shal be allowed hereafter, Also whosoever Kil any whale of the Company or Companys aforesaid they ar to pay to the Town for every such Whale five Shillings — and for the Incorragement of the said James Lopar the Town doth grant him Ten Acres of Land in som convenant place, that he may Chuse in, (Wood Land exceped) and also Liberty for the Commonge. of thre Cows and twenty Sheep and one horse with necessary Wood and water for his use on Conditions that he follow the Trade of Whaleing on the Island two years in all the season thereof, beginning the first of March next insuing. Also is to build upon his land, and when he leaves Inhabiting upon the Island then he is first to ofer his Land to the Town at a Valluable price, and if the Town do not buy it — then he may Sel it to whome he please — the commonage is granted only for the time he stays here.”” This James Lopar is thought by Starbuck (1878, p. 16) to be with little doubt the same person that he mentions as engaged in whaling on the Long Island shores at this time. There is no evidence to show that Lopar did actually avail himself of the proposi- tion thus made to him, although a cooper named John Savidge, who was offered a similar concession, apparently did come to ‘‘follow his trade of cooper upon the island as the town or whale Company have need to employ him.” It was nearly twenty years later, in 1690, that the people of Nantucket employed Ichabod Paddock to come from Yarmouth, and instruct them in killing whales and trying out the oil. It was in this same year, according to a cherished local tradition, that one of a company of persons who were watching the whales from the top of the present Folly House Hill, pointed to the sea and observed with prophetic vision, ‘‘ There is a green pasture where our children’s grandchildren will go for bread.” It appears that at first the whaling operations were, as elsewhere, carried on in boats from the shore, and that occasionally, in pleasant weather during the winter season, the whalers ventured off nearly out of sight of land. A description of this is given by J. Hector St. John Crévecoeur who, in 1782, published at London some “Letters from an American Farmer.”’ He tells us that after the beginning of the shore fishery at Nantucket, ‘‘the south sides of the island from east to west, were divided into four equal parts, and each part was assigned to a company of six, which though thus separated, still carried on their business in common. In the middle of this distance, they erected a mast, provided with a sufficient number of rounds, and near it they built a temporary hut, where five of the associates lived, whilst the sixth from his high station carefully looked toward the sea, in order to observe the spouting of the whales. As soon as any were discovered, the sentinel descended, the whale-boat was launched, and the company went forth in quest of their game.’’! The same writer further says that the Right Whale was common and was known to the Nantucketers as the ‘seven-foot-bone’ from the length of its longest plates of baleen. Its numbers, however, must have speedily declined, 1St. John Crévecoeur, J. Hector. Letters from an American Farmer. London, 1782; reprint, 1904, see p. 159. 166 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. and the whalers at the same period were yearly voyaging to greater distances from home. Indeed, Starbuck tells us that already by 1732, New Englanders were whaling in Davis Straits. In 1720, the people of Nantucket ventured to send a small shipment of oil to London, and this was soon followed by more, so that ere long commenced an important traffic. The original bill of lading of this first shipment dated at Boston, the 7th of April, 1720, is quoted by Star- buck (1878, p. 20):— “Shipped by the grace of God, in good order and well conditioned, by Paul Starbuck, in the good ship called the Hanover, whereof is master under God for the present voyage, William Chadder and now riding in the harbour of Boston, and by God’s grace bound for London; to say: — six barrels of traine oyle, being on the proper account & risque of Nathaniel Starbuck, of Nantucket, and goes consigned to Richard Partridge merchant in London. Being marked & numbered as in the margin & to be delivered in like good order & well conditioned at the aforesaid port of London (The dangers of the sea only excepted) unto Richard Partridge afore- said or to his assignees, He or they paying Freight for said goods, at the rate of fifty shillings per tonn, with primage & average accustomed. “Tn witness whereof the said Master or Purser of said Ship hath affirmed to two Bills of Lading all of this Tener and date, one of which two Bills being Accomplished, the other to stand void. “And so God send the Good Ship to her desired Port in safety, Amen! “Articles & contents unknown to — (Signed) William Chadder.”’ The Nantucket Indians who from the first had been treated with consideration, were largely employed in this early whaling. Macy ' tells us that nearly every boat was manned in part, many almost entirely, by them, so that, as at Cape Cod, they soon became experienced whalemen. After killing the whale, they towed it ashore, for the Right’ Whale usually floats when dead, and the blubber was then stripped off by the aid of a sort of windlass called a ‘erab.’ The blubber was carried in carts to the try houses which then were near the dwellings of the settlers. Of the numbers of whales taken in the Nantucket waters in these years almost nothing is recorded. Macy says that the greatest number ever killed and brought to shore in a single day was eleven, and the greatest number killed in any year was in 1726 when no less than eighty-six were captured. These figures will serve to indicate the abundance of Right Whales on the coast in those times. In addition to boat whaling from the shore stations, it is certain that at an early date, larger vessels were sent out to pursue the Right Whale in the offshore waters at no great distance from port. It was one of these vessels, that about 1712, while cruising for Right Whales near shore, was blown by a strong northerly wind some distance from land. A school of Sperm 1Maey, O. History of Nantucket, 1835, p. 30. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 167 Whales was discovered and the crew succeeded in killing one and bringing it back to the island. Following the example thus set, a number of vessels were shortly fitted out and sent on cruises of six weeks or so, and these on capturing whales, returned at once with the blubber, for trying out. These vessels usually carried two boats, one of which was held in reserve while the other was sent to attack the whale. To facilitate the landing of the spoil and the rendering of the oil, try-houses were erected near the landing, so that the vessel might at once discharge her cargo and return to the chase. Gradually, as the Right Whales diminished in the vicinity of Nantucket, the vessels went farther and farther afield. About 1760, says Nantucket’s historian, their numbers had so greatly decreased, that their pursuit in the home waters was gradually abandoned. With the increasing development of the sperm whaling came the fitting out of larger vessels for the uncharted seas of distant parts of the world. During the last cen- tury, the records as elsewhere detailed, still show the occasional occurrence of Right Whales off the coast of Nantucket but for many years no special effort was made to capture these stray individuals. In 1886, however, the appearance of several Right Whales near at hand, roused again the whaling blood of the islanders, boats and harpoons were hastily prepared and three or four whales were eventually killed. Since then as I am told by one of the townspeople, a boat is kept in readiness at Tuckernuck and on Nantucket, should a Right Whale appear, but years may now pass without ever a spout to call forth the hunters. Martha’s Vineyard.— In the Vinyard Gazette (quoted by Starbuck, 1878, p. 17) occurs the earliest mention of whaling at Martha’s Vineyard. This was in November, 1652, “when Thomas Daggett and William Weeks were appointed ‘whale cutters for this year.’ The en- suing April it was ‘Ordered by the town that the whale is to be cut out freely, four men at one time, and four at another, and so every whale, beginning at the east end of the town.’”’ This appears to signify that, beginning with the householders at the east end of the town, the first four should take charge of the first whale cast ashore, and should ‘save’ its oil for the town free of cost. The next four men in like manner were to attend to the next that should come, and so all would take their turn in working for the common good. It is therefore to be inferred that the appointment of but two ‘whale cutters’ the previous year had proved insuffi- cient. From the same source, we are informed that in 1690, ‘‘Mr. Sarson and William Vinson were appointed by ‘the proprietors of the whale’ to oversee the cutting and sharing of all whales cast on shore within the bounds of Edgartown, ‘they to have as much for their care as one 99) cutter. Probably, then, as at Cape Cod, it had later become convenient to give the entire charge of saving ‘drift’ whales into the hands of a certain few persons, who in return paid the town a rental, and made what profit they might. Such were the “proprietors of the whale.” No doubt these gentlemen, eager for a large return, did not take extraordinary pains to ascer- tain whether such dead whales seemed to have died from natural causes (and so were a legiti- mate prey) or were marked by harpoons or lance thrusts so as to be identifiable by the whalers 168 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. who had actually killed them and might thus rightly claim the blubber. Starbuck (1878, p. 18) finds, thus, in 1692 a case of ‘‘the inevitable dispute of proprietorship. A whale was cast on shore at Edgartown by the proprietors, ‘seized by Benjamin Smith and Mr. Joseph Norton in their behalf,’ which was also claimed by ‘John Steel, harpooner, on a whale design, as being killed by him.’ It was settled by placing the whale in the custody of Richard Sarson, esq., and Mr. Benjamin Smith, as agents of the proprietors, to save by trying out and securing the oil; ‘and that no distribution be made of the said whale, or effects, till after fifteen days are expired after the date hereof, that so such persons who may pretend an interest or claim, in the whale, may make their challenge; and in case such challenge appear sufficient to them, then they may deliver the said whale or oyl to the challenger; otherwise to give notice to the 99) proprietors, who may do as the matter may require. From these meager references we are to infer that whales were regularly hunted in the waters about Martha’s Vineyard, and that they not infrequently drifted, dead, to the shores, usually no doubt, victims of a previous encounter with the whalemen. It became customary, in the event of the quarry escaping, for the whalers at once to put on record with the town clerk, the wounds of the whale and the marks of the harpoons that so it might be identified in ease it drifted to land. Such an entry is quoted by Starbuck (1878, p. 35) from the Court records of Martha’s Vineyard for the year 1702-03: ‘‘The marks of the whales killed by John Butler and Thomas Lothrop. One whale lanced near or over the shoulder blade, near the left shoulder blade only; another killed with an iron forward in the left side, marked W; and upon the right side marked with a pocket- knife T. L.; and the other had an iron hole over the right shoulder-blade, with two lance holes in the same side, one in the belly. These whales were all killed about the middle of February last past; all great whales, betwixt six and seven and eight foot bone, which are all gone from us. A true account given by John Butler from us, and recorded Per me, Thomas Trapp, Clerk.” Martha’s Vineyard seems never to have been very prominent in whaling, and the few references that apply to the industry there after 1700 have to do mainly with deep-sea voyages, for the Right Whales were nearly exterminated in the adjacent waters by the first quarter of the eighteenth century, and by its close they were so scarce that a writer‘ in 1807 says: “ But the whale, which was formerly so abundant on the coast, has almost disappeared... .Two have been taken during the course of the last twenty years.” Early Whaling in Rhode Island.— In 1663, King Charles II granted a charter to the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, which among other privileges, provides: ‘‘ffurther, for the encouragement of the inhabitants of our sayd Collony of Providence Plantations to sett vpon the business of takeing whales, itt shall bee lawefull ffor them, or any of them, having struck whale, dubertus [7. e., Finback Whales], or other greate ffish, itt or them, to pursue unto 1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1846, ser. 2, vol. 3, p. 55. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 169 any parte of that coaste, and into any bay, river, cove, creeke or shoare, belonging thereto, to kill and order to the best advantage, without molestation, they makeing noe wilfull waste or spoyle.” ! To what extent the inhabitants of Rhode Island availed themselves of the whaling privi- leges thus granted, there seems to be little record. It may safely be inferred, however, that whaling was carried on in the adjacent waters, and that dead whales, probably in large part those previously wounded, were from time to time driven ashore by wind and tide. Here, as elsewhere, such flotsam was considered a perquisite of the Crown, provided that no proof could be shown that the whale had been harpooned by the whalers. But the Crown officers seem to have been rather lax in the administration of such prizes, until in 1686, at a town meeting at Westerly, March 24, it was ‘““Voarrp: that whereas sundry fish of considderable value have been formerly cast up within the confines of this towne, and have been monopolized by pertic- uler persons bellonging to other jurisdicttions, whereby his Majesty and subjects have been wronged of their just Rights and priviledges; And to protect the like for the future, The Towne doe order, That if any Whale, Dubertus, [a name applied to the Finback Whales] or other great fish of considerable value shall be cast up within the limmits of this Towne, the person or per- sons that shall first find it shall forthwith make the Authorities and Inhabitants acquainted with the same, that his Majesties Right may be secured, and the remainder to be equally divided among the inhabitants; and the person or persons so doeing shall be duly Recom- pensed for their paines.....And if any person or persons shall presume to break up any such fish or fishes, before publycation thereof, According to this order, he or they, or either of them, shall pay thirty pounds sterling as a fine to the towne, and return the fish that they have taken.” * The ‘‘perticuler persons bellonging to other jurisdicttions”” may well have been some of the more energetic whalers of Stonington or New London, who at this time were proba- bly active in the shore fishery. The large amount of the fine (£30) imposed for breach of this order is indicative of the determination of the people at Westerly to permit no more ‘drift’ whales to be cut up and carried off by their brethren of neighboring towns. This order of 1686, it will appear, is practically the same in its tenor as the law that existed in 1652 in the Plymouth Colony, making the ‘‘drift fish’? public property to be shared equally by the inhabi- tants, after the Crown had been accorded its due portion. That so few echoes of strife over the possession of whales are heard from Rhode Island is perhaps evidence that they were little pursued by the settlers of its shores. After the devastating French and Indian Wars, attempts were made to stimulate the fishing industry, and in March, 1751, the General Assembly at Providence passed an act for encourag- ing the ‘‘whale and cod fishery within this colony.”” To this end a bounty of four shillings 1 Records Colony of R. I. and Providence Plantations, 1857, vol. 2, p. 16. 2 Denison, F. Westerly (Rhode Island), 1878, p. 223. 170 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. was allowed on every barrel of whale oil and one shilling on every pound of whalebone. The effect of this act is not apparent. Whaling in Connecticut.— That whaling was begun or contemplated on the Connecticut shores shortly previous to 1650, is evidenced by a minute in the Colonial Records, (Public Records of Conn., 1850, vol. 1, p. 154), showing that the General Court at Hartford, on May 25, 1647, resolved that ““Yf Mr. Whiting w'' any others shall make tryall and p'secute a de- signe for the takeing of Whale, w'hin these libertyes, and if vppon tryall w'"in the terme of two yeares, they shall like to goe on, noe others shalbe suffered to interrupt them, for tearme of seauen yeares.” This method of granting monopolies, we are informed, was the customary mode of encour- aging enterprise at that early day.’ Of Mr. Whiting’s project, however, nothing further is known. It is probable, nevertheless, that whales frequently came into the eastern end of Long Island Sound, and there can be little doubt that the settlers on that part of the Connecti- cut sea board engaged at times in their pursuit. Caulkins' notes the mention of “a whale- boat” in an enumeration of goods at New London before the end of the seventeenth century. The same author quotes an old memorandum of January 13, 1717: “Comfort Davis hath hired my whale boat to go a whaling to Fisher’s Island, till the 20th of next month, to pay twenty shillings for her hire, and if he stays longer, thirty shillings. If she be lost, and they get nothing, he is to pay me £3, but if they get a fish, £3, 10s.” It is to be inferred that the expectation was not for a very large catch — “‘if they get a fish,” the owner of the boat seems to think they shall have done as much as could reasonably be expected. Probably Right Whales did not penetrate far into the Sound, but came now and then to its eastern end. Although Stonington and New London at about the middle of the nineteenth century became important whaling ports, their vessels of course cruised far from the home waters. No doubt local whaling declined here as elsewhere in eastern New England in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Linsley mentions that just previous to 1842 a school of Right Whales appeared in the waters off Stonington, whither one of them was later brought, while a second was killed by whalers from Montauk, Long Island. This would indicate that boats were still kept in readiness for the occasional appearance of the whales, but the industry had long since ceased to have local importance. Yield of Oil and Baleen. According to Collett (1909, p. 95) the amount of first quality oil yielded by this species varied from ten to thirty barrels in case of those captured of late years among the Hebrides. These amounts seem small, however, in comparison with those elsewhere recorded, which probably include the total amount of oil obtained. 1 Caulkins, F. M. History of New London, Conn., 1852, p. 638. EEE EE eee —- = NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 7A Two Right Whales captured off Provincetown about the 20th of May, 1888, yielded to- gether about 170 barrels of oil, an average of 85 (Nantucket Journal, vol. 10, no. 35, May 31, 1888). A Right Whale killed off Nantucket in April, 1886, is said to have yielded about forty barrels of oil and 650 pounds of whalebone. The total yield from this and two others of about the same size, taken at this time, was about 125 barrels of oil and 1500 pounds of whalebone (Nantucket Journal, vol. 8, no. 31, Apl. 29, 1886; no. 32, May 6, 1886). An unusually large and fat cow Right Whale, accompanied by a calf, was killed off Cape Cod about the first of June, 1888, and was estimated to yield about 100 barrels of oil and 1500 pounds of whalebone, worth at that time between $3000 and $4000 (Nantucket Journal, vol. 10, no. 36, June 7, 1888). The Right Whale, taken off Plymouth, Mass., in April, 1864, whose mounted skeleton is preserved in the Museum of Comparative Zodlogy, yielded eighty barrels and fourteen gallons of oil which was sold for $1.14 per gallon. The baleen taken from it weighed 1001 pounds and sold for $1.00 a pound. According to Douglass ! they ‘‘do yield not exceeding 120 to 130 barrels oil, and 9 feet bone 140 Ib. wt.’? The Arctic Bowhead Whale yields from 400 to 500 barrels of oil. Dr. F. W. True (1904) quotes the following from O’Callaghan’s Documents relating to the Colonial History of New York, taken from a letter dated July 1, 1708, and addressed to the Lords of Trade by one Lord Cornbury: ‘“‘a Yearling will make about forty Barrels of Oyl, a Stunt or Whale of two years old will make sometimes fifty, sometimes Sixty Barrils of Oyl, and the largest whale that I have heard of in these Parts, yielded one hundred and ten barrils of Oyl, and twelve hundred Weight of bone.” ” Paul Dudley, in his essay on the whales of New England, records that “‘ one of these Whales has yielded One hundred and thirty Barrels of Oil, and near twenty out of the Tongue.” Collett states that four whales of this species yielded a ton of whalebone worth (in 1909) about $7500, and that the weight of baleen in a full grown specimen is from 250 to 330 kilograms (551 to 668 pounds). The Right Whale usually floats, nearly awash, when dead, so that it is not so difficult a matter to tow it ashore when captured at sea. This, however, is not always the case, depending doubtless on the condition of the whale, whether there is less than the normal amount of blubber in proportion to the flesh and bone to decrease the specific gravity of its body to less than that of sea water. A “‘thirty-barrel’’ Right Whale (and hence comparatively lean for this species) was struck off Nantucket in April, 1886, and after a short struggle, was dispatched. It was no sooner dead, however, when it ‘‘rolled over and sank in eleven fathoms of water” so 1 Douglass, W. A. A Summary, historical and political, of the first planting, progressive improvement, and present state of the British settlements in North America, 1755, vol. 1, p. 56. é 2 Documents relative to Colonial Hist. N. Y., 1855, vol. 5, p. 60. 172 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. that it was necessary to attach a buoy to the line and wait for the body to rise, “‘which it was thought it would do in about forty-eight hours” (Nantucket Journal, vol. 8, no. 30, Apl. 22, 1886). The use of whalebone for stays in women’s clothes probably dates back to the early days of whaling, perhaps the 10th century or thereabouts. Blackstone mentions the ancient right of the Crown to a share in the oil and baleen of the whales taken. He says: “ Another ancient prerequisite belonging to the Queen Consort, mentioned by all old writers,....is this; that on the taking of a whale on the coast, which is a royal fish, it shall be divided between the King and Queen, the head only being the King’s portion, and the tail of it the Queen’s. The reason of this whimsical division, as assigned by our ancient records, was to furnish the Queen’s ward- robe with whalebone.” ! Pennant explains that it was anciently believed that the plates of baleen were the tail of the monster, hence the whalebone must have been allotted the Queen. Enemies and Parasites. The Orea or Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) is said oceasionally to attack the Right Whale; sometimes several combine and appear to be trying to bite the lips and tongue. These accounts require confirmation, however. Otherwise, the species is not known to have any natural Text-rics. 2, 3, 4— Three species of Whale-lice, small crustaceans parasitic on the Right Whale. 2.— Cyamus gracilis @. After Lutken, 1873, Plate 4, fig. 10. 3.— Cyamus ovalis #. After Lutken, 1873, Plate 2, fig. 4. 4— Cyamus erraticus @. After Lutken, 1878, Plate 3, fig. 5. enemies, a fact which may in some measure account for its quiet habits. It is not even known that individuals fight among themselves, and its powerful tail is its only means of defense. Of ectoparasites, the so-called Whale-louse is the best known. This is an amphipod crus- tacean that has become highly modified for its peculiar mode of life. The body is about half 1 Blackstone’s Com. Book, vol. 1, p. 222. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 178 an inch in length, much flattened, with five pairs of legs, each armed with a sharp recurved claw for clinging to the whale. There are two pairs of anterior clawed appendages and three posterior. On the intermediate two segments are the paired branchial sacs. The abdomen has become reduced to a mere knob. Liitken (1873) found two species on the Nordkapers taken at Iceland: Cyamus ovalis and C. erraticus. Guldberg (1891) in examining two other specimens of this whale at Iceland, found C. ovalis only, and this is probably the common species in the North Atlantic. In the Southern Ocean, a third species, C. gracilis, is found together with the two others, infesting the Southern Right Whale. In the North Pacific, C. ovalis and C. gracilis also occur together, and the latter may be looked for perhaps in the North Atlantic. These crustaceans infest the rugosities on the rostrum, and on the anterior ends and sides of the jaw, and may also be found about the genitalia or scattered over the body. It is not unlikely that they cause the rough appearance of the knobs on the head, but there is no reason to suppose that the ‘bonnet’ is the result of inflammation induced by their activity as one writer has suggested. A number were observed on the Provincetown 1909 whale, but unfortunately none was preserved. The genus is omitted from Miss Rathbun’s list of New England Crustacea. Apparently the North Atlantic Right Whale does not usually carry barnacles. Indeed the only definite mention of these crustaceans on our species is the statement of Van Beneden (1890) that he possessed an excellent drawing of a Coronula made from a specimen taken from the skin of a Nordkaper captured toward the end of the 18th century between Iceland and Newfoundland. The evidence of its origin does not seem to be quite as convincing as one could wish, and in view of the apparent lack of other records of its occurrence on this whale, there is a strong presumption that it may have come from a Humpback. In the same paper, Van Beneden (1890) figures a Coronula, identified as C. regine, a Pacific species, which was picked up on the Gaspé shore, Gulf of St. Lawrence, attached to a piece of the integument of a whale. He believes this may have come from a North Atlantic Right Whale, and adduces this specimen as evidence of the world-wide range of the species. The evidence, however, is inconclusive. The specimen is of unknown origin, and may even have been taken in the Pacific, kept by some whaleman, and thrown overboard in the Atlantic and so drifted to the Gaspé coast. On the Right Whale of the South Seas, however, a cylindrical species, Tubicinella trachealis, occurs imbedded deep in the bonnet. According to Steenstrup (Liitken, 1873, p. 244) a speci- men supposed to have come from a Nordkaper stranded on the Faroe Islands in 1650 is figured and described by Ole Worms, 174 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. Jonah and the Whale. A question very frequently asked is: What kind of whale was it that swallowed Jonah? If a whale actually did swallow the prophet, it was certainly none of the whalebone whales. For in all these the gullet is far too small to permit of such a feat, and even in the larger spe- cies is not greatly bigger than the diameter of a large man’s fist. The Sperm Whale is probably the only one of the existing whales that is capable of swallowing a man, but that it would actually do so is very unlikely. According to the biblical account, Jonah had been called by the Lord to go to Nineveh to preach to the people of their wickedness. But he, fearing to do so, embarked at Joppa on a ship for Spain (Tarshish) and on the voyage was caught in a heavy storm. The ship’s crew believing Jonah to be the cause of the storm, at his bidding cast him into the sea. The trans- lation of the Hebrew text reads (Jonah i: 17): ‘‘Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” There is thus nothing to show that a whale was intended. That it was a whale, however, is supposed to be indicated by the passage in Matthew’s Gospel (xii: 40): ‘‘For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” But the word translated as ‘whale’ is the Greek xfros which means a sea monster and might quite as well have been a shark or other large marine animal. For those who prefer a literal interpretation of the passage, therefore, the ‘‘great fish” may have been a huge shark or even a Sperm Whale, while those who wish to take it figuratively, may dodge the issue by supposing Jonah to have been cast off in a small boat which he likened to the bowels of a sea monster, but which after three days.of rough weather eventually brought him to land. Haupt (1907) adduces several instances of the occurrence of the Sperm Whale in the Mediterranean, and suggests that the idea of a sea monster was given to the author of the Book of Jonah by the local legends connected with Joppa, the port from which Jonah embarked; for it was here that Andromeda was rescued from a sea monster by Perseus. What a pity, as someone has remarked, that so great a prophet should be chiefly remem- bered for this trifling incident of his missionary journey! An Indian Totem. An interesting carved stone, apparently a piece of aboriginal art, has been described from Seabrook, N. H., by Professor F. W. Putnam.! It evidently represents,a cetacean, with rudely indicated pectoral fins and horizontal tail. The absence of a dorsal fin might indicate that it was meant to represent the Right Whale, but the mouth has more the form of a White 1 Putnam, F. W. Bull. Essex Inst., 1873, vol. 5, p. 111, figs. NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 175 Whale’s (Delphinapterus). The probability seems to favor its having been a Right Whale, however, since this species must have been of importance and well known to the Indians, whereas the White Porpoise is rare on our coast. The carving is described as rudely done by picking the sienitie rock, from which it was made, with stone implements. A small hole through the tail seems to imply that it was to be suspended. It measured ten inches in length and about two inches in greatest diameter. Professor Putnam believed that it was probably used by the Indians as a totem. Two other similarly worked stones were said to have been found at the same place. A somewhat similar stone is in the museum of the Department of Archaeology, of Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. It was found at Fall River, and differs from the Seabrook speci- men in the greater crudeness of design. The flukes are not shown, but instead the tail end is tapering, with a groove as if for suspension by a cord. Possibly both were used as plummets or sinkers for fish nets. 176 1758. 1758. 1792. ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. Balaenoptera physalus (Linni). Common FiInspAack WHALE. Pirate 10; Puate 11, fie. 2; Pirate 13, rigs. 4, 5. SYNONYMY. Balaena physalus Linné, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, vol. 1, p. 75. Balaena boops Linné, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, vol. 1, p. 76 (= young of B. physalus). Balaena physalis Kerr, Anim. Kingdom, vol. 1, p. 358. 1803-4. Balaenoptera gibbar Lacépede, Hist. Nat. des Cétacés, vol. 1, pp. liii, 168, pl. 1, fig. 2. 1803-4. 1811. 1820. 1825. 1827. 1828. 1828. 1829. 1829. 1830. 1854. 1836. 1837. 1840. 1841. 1843. 1846. 1847. 1847. 1856. 1857. 1860. 1862. 1862. Balaenoptera rorqual Lacépéde, Hist. Nat. des Cétacés, vol. 1, pp. liv, 185, pl. 1, fig. 3; pl. 5, fig. 1; folk fe Balaena suleata Neill, Mem. Wernerian Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 1, p. 212. Balaena gibbar Desmarest, Mammalogie, vol. 1, p. 528. Balaenoptera sulcata Jacob, Dublin Philos. Journ., p. 333. Balaena rostrata var. major Rosenthal, Kinige naturhist. Bemerk. iiber die Walle, plate. Balaenoptera mediterraneensis Lesson, Hist. Nat. Gén. et Partic. des Mamm. et des Oiseaux, Cétacés, pp. 361, 442 (renaming of Lacépéde’s B. rorqual). Physalis vulgaris Fleming, Hist. British Animals, p. 32. Balaena antiquorum Fischer, Synopsis Mamm., p. 525. Balaenoptera aragous Farines and Carcassonne, Mémoire sur un Cétacé échoué le 27 novembre 1828 sur la céte....de Saint-Cyprien. Perpignan, 2 pages. Balaena musculus Companyo, Mémoire descriptif et ostéographie de la baleine échouée sur les cétes de la mer, prés de Saint Cyprien, département des Pyrénées-Orientales, le 27 novbre 1828. Per- pignan, 71 pp., 5 pls. Balaenoptera jubartes Dewhurst, Nat. Hist. Cetacea, p. 101 (not Lacépéde). Rorqualus musculus F. Cuvier, Hist. Nat. des Cétacés, p. 334. Balaenoptera borealis Rapp, Die Cetaceen zoologisch-anatomisch dargestellt. Stuttgart und Tubingen, 8vo, p. 52, (not of Lesson). Balaenoptera tenwirostris Sweeting, Charlesworth’s Mag. Nat. Hist., new ser., vol. 4, p. 343. Balaena sulcata arctica Schlegel, Abhandl. Zool. u. Vergl. Anat., no. 1, pl. 6, figs. 1, 2. Balaenoptera arctica Schlegel, Weit. Beitr. z. Naturg. Cetaceen, p. 10, pl. 9. Balaenoptera antiquorum Gray, Zool. Voyage Erebus and Terror, Mammalia, p. 50. Physalus antiquorum Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 90. Physalus (Rorqualus) boops Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 91. Physalus duguidii Heddle, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 187-198, pls. (Mamm.) 44, 45 (name occurs on plates only). Pterobalaena communis van Beneden, Bull. Acad. Roy. Belg., Bruxelles, ser. 2, vol. 1, p. 403. Balaenoptera robusta Lilljeborg, Féredrag vid Naturforsk-Métet i Képenhaun, p. 602; Upsala Univ. Arsskriv., 1862 (not Eschrichtius robustus of Gray; based on a subfossil and imperfect skeleton from Sweden). Pterobalaena musculus Lilljeborg, Upsala Univ. Arsskrift for 1861-2, p. 43. Balaenoptera physalus Schlegel, De Dieren van Nederland: Gewervelde Dieren, p. 101, pl. 20; True, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1898, vol. 21, p. 633. PLATE 10. : Common Finback Whale (Balaenoptera physalus). Drawn by J. Henry Blake from measurements of Dr. Dwight’s Gloucester, Mass., specimen (see Memoirs B. S. N. H., 1872, vol. 2, p. 203). oe as i Q ‘ i es yt), “onan bed il a y, Wy } ig yawn ! Ut i A A i ; ny ies] ro rrr ies 3) ha) Wa Mit rect pe a ee : SE ail Hie Ne ‘aah a Lh iy... an UAT a oR eR ei te ae oa) Vg! oe ia Tres he ae y a ¥ 1 1 ‘i 5 ou a . ta yes Nias f 1 rie f ‘ A 1 q oe M ' r nn t r ae at ) dbs “yt rated te ihe ee : ai (iam) et cae hy, oe an 2M " ee: Ries seonhiny » i pple. "a ua he aoa Pa ys ee oe } tae I 4 oe Gs dee ee oe hie se Mtg as Ries om Se alia) con bs * : Meena re ak vt if in a re oy rh ; rr i Lop erate j OOK ir .) nan ieton bites ita; aah mee) 1 r ‘a ahae m Hea hi bi Lies Pia ney vi wide ty Ayn. Ceo ag SMR an okt pe ne anh mihi Nelnig $ vay t Sobeeay, a Rat 8 i i ebateate ply Lae Dichintnd Bagram ‘staat wy. eM ie " Be. ie . ne a ee hat a hn ta ee ea anu Ae et an vhs Ns mt ie | ht ate, Becta Py a aleel Y e Niaite dr cf Pla , ty ed RRS ee ere ky i eli am edhe: re TOR, see i pe got Aig eb leet ii een Path Eng en yi aan } Piet Nott ce Ces 0 | 1: itoaeayy Aine | A imi rin tem isi ve i ‘petals 4 ee SL Ste eh Akh ae aoe PN Pe oy enn wena SUP, shh te ail aL, ei Eee et ie Big nl EP paren ha ch m : ; } eee yor. v i oa iy Ss tng ia rye ve Dest Pe fay Ny Ae ae sae lors 74 Ges fringe My: Newer ee Aa ed Tiyat ha i) ae . Re ris eg e's Sra I wes es iweiatpiik May Ode ANS baie Viel Thea mi | TAY ee bi GiB) 9 age ig Sok Mak NET PANO ol cao. a ; ae ie f be an one hu. Me gy re a: ah ae went wa ee ny = Toe ue / [ jn y, STR Ae Kiwis Ry re) i eed iby aly a Byte } La ee Dake x Why un jirag thet » aie Myce | une Gerd} re any 1 LT ie Ne : RM i YS AA UNL RA Aig on) ASR i MR ‘ a A Areal ee bt een er TOM ht Si Wier 8 peg Pe ae ‘ nT ‘se ea sins Fh Ati dote A ee ti ral Py oe ie apiea Nt Pe Thin ae eeare iv A oxe Hae Le ae MIL, Vie on ay iT panellnge ats eye Abii He 4 new rt | clea Lda Ah Te pays bi ye 5 iy Bae at aan * rit ny ae yl? at ‘ ima: a eee { ined, Pale rea Gh KRG pbb oad Dad ions {7 re | falar | ee a hue ee ley rh i eee r \ aot Wis! Witenes a NI SiH ALi aed re » Wigton: aint Sik om” kM Me a. oy oa : ed i Jing ‘ Bi Nag al} 4, i meee ees as ‘ "4 i Ms Nery | pe a) i s > ; i "2 P 4 ’ iy j a 4 ‘OF dLvid “ATVHMA AOVANIA NOWWOD ot GS ON 8 ‘TOA “LSIH “LYN ‘(00S NOLSOG SUIOWAW \v« COMMON FINBACK WHALE. Lids 1863. ?Balaenoptera syncondylus A. Miiller, Schrift. K. Phys. Oekonom. Ges. K6nigsberg, vol. 4, p. 38-78, pl. 1-3. 1864. Rorqualus antiquorum Gervais, Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. Paris, vol. 59, p. 880. 1864. Benedenia knoxii Gray, Proc. Zool. Soe. London, p. 212, fig. 8-Sb. 1869. Sibbaldius tuberosus Cope, Proce. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., p. 17 (=B. physalus, fide True, 1904). 1869. Sibbaldius tectirostris Cope, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., p. 17. 1871. Benedenia boops Gray, Supplement to Cat. Seals and Whales British Museum, p. 52 (not Gray, Synop- sis, 1865, as here stated). 1871. Physalus musculus Malm, Kongl. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handl., vol. 9, pt. 2, no. 2, p. 40. 1873. Physalus dugeridii Gray, Zoologist, ser. 2, p. 3363 (misprint). 1884. Dubertus rhodinsulensis Trumbull, in G. B. Goode, Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., section 1, vol. 1, p. 29 (nomen nudum). 1914. Balaenoptera muscularis Daniel and Hamilton, Rept. 83d Meeting British Assn. Adv. Sci., 1913, p. 155 (errorim). History and Nomenclature. Although the Finback had long been known in a general way, and is probably the species referred to by Pliny as known to the Ancients, it was perhaps not until 1675 that it was recog- nizably described and figured by Martens in his Spitzbergische oder Grénlandische Reise Beschreibung gethan im Jahr 1671, where it is called “Finfisch.” In 1725 Paul Dudley, in his essay on the natural history of the whales of New England, also distinguished this species carefully, and it is on these two accounts that the Latin names of the earlier systematists, Klein, Brisson, and Linné, were chiefly based. True (1898) has carefully analysed Linné’s references in the tenth edition of the Systema Naturae and has shown conclusively that his Balaena physalus is the Common Finback, since it is based on Martens’s account. Linné’s Balaena boops, he further proves, was founded on Sibbald’s account (published in Phalaino- logia Nova, 1692) of a young whale of the same species, hence it becomes a synonym of physalus, and is not applicable to the Humpback, notwithstanding current usage to the contrary till very recent years. In his Histoire Naturelle des Cétacés, 1803-4, the French naturalist Lacépéde erected the genus Balaenoptera for the Finner Whales, and through a misconception, named as B. gibbar a supposed species without throat folds. This, however, was undoubtedly based on an im- perfect figure by Martens, 1675, in which no throat folds were shown. The name Balae- noptera rorqual was given in the same work to what was considered the real Finback. In 1811 Neill redescribed the Finback from a specimen from Scottish waters under the name of Balaena sulcata, in reference to the longitudinal throat folds, and in 1841, Schlegel, in an anatomical paper on the same species used this name in a trinomial, Balaena sulcata arctica. In a separately published work by Rosenthal, 1827, is a very circumstantial account of the capture of a whale on the west coast of Rigen, Germany, two years before. It is accompanied by a plate, drawn to scale, showing a Balaenoptera some 43 feet long with white 178 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. belly and high dorsal fin. The name Balaena rostrata var. major is given it, and its skeleton appears to have been preserved at Greifswald. Eschricht (1899) refers to the specimen, and from the fact that he credits it with fifteen pairs of ribs, it was probably a Finback. The British naturalist Fleming, in 1828, proposed to call the Common Finback Physalis vulgaris, though his account probably relates to the Blue Whale as well, while in the same year the - French naturalist Lesson gave the name Balaenoptera mediterraneensis to the Finback of the Mediterranean Sea, founding his account on Lacépéde’s description of a specimen from the coast of Southern France. Fischer the following year, 1829, independently named the Medi- terranean Whale supposing it to be different from that of the Atlantic. His name, Balaena antiquorum, is based chiefly on Lacépéde’s description, but he refers also to the accounts of Pliny and the older naturalists. This same year, 1829, a Finback Whale was cast ashore on the French coast at Saint Cyprien and formed the subject of a brief communication by MM. Farines and Carcassonne, who called it Balaenoptera aragous after M. Arago, one of the chief men of the Département where the whale came ashore. This name is quoted by Gervais (1864), but does not seem to appear elsewhere in literature. The following year, 1830, Companyo published a more extended account of this same specimen, which he called, unfortunately, Balaena musculus of Linné, referring it to the subgenus Balaenoptera. In the application of this specific name to the Finback Whale, most later writers have followed him until True (1898) showed that Linné’s musculus refers to the Blue Whale. Thus, previous to 1831, no less than eleven different trivial names were proposed for the Common Finback of the North Atlantic. Schlegel, in 1862, was the first to employ the combination Balaenoptera physalus, which, as it now appears, is the correct term for our Common Finback. Meanwhile Sweeting in 1840 had described as Balaenoptera tenuirostris a specimen stranded at Charmouth Beach, England, and in 1856 a Finback captured in Orkney was named Physalus duguidii by Heddle. Van Beneden, in 1857, raised to generic rank the subgenus Pterobalaena, proposed in 1849 by Eschricht, and as the custom was, gave a new specific name at the same time — Plerobalaena communis. The synonymy of this species furnishes a good index of the progress of cetology during the last century. The lack of knowledge as to the amount of individual variation in these great mammals, and the difficulty of making exact comparisons, led for a time to the belief that there were divers sorts characterized by various differences in form and skeleton which Gray, Eschricht, Lilljeborg, Cope and others proposed to consider as distinct species or even genera. Thus were founded such genera as Pterobalaena, Sibbaldius, Benedenia, with sundry species, as Plterobalaena communis, Physalus duguidii, Benedenia knoxii, as well as Sibbaldius tuberosus and S. tectirostris based on American specimens by Cope. But with the advance of knowledge, it has become apparent that the small or fancied differences which these names were intended to mark, are after all mainly matters of individuality or misconception, and that they all refer to but a single species. COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 179 Fossil remains, now considered indistinguishable from B. physalus, have been found in Sweden, and formed in 1860 the basis of Lilljeborg’s Balaenoptera robusta. The posterior portion of a cranium dug up in Germany, and in which the condyles are unusually close together, may also be a Finback. It was made in 1863, the basis of Miiller’s Balaenoptera syncondylus. Fossil remains are known from the Pleistocene deposits of Canada. The type locality given by Linné is the indefinite one of ‘“‘Oceano Europaeo,” but as his name is based on Martens’s account, this should be interpreted as the seas between Europe and Spitzbergen. The Greek derivation of the scientific name is from ¢4Aawa, a whale (which in Latin be- comes balaena) and mzepév, a wing or fin in reference to the dorsal fin. The specific term phy- salus — from ¢icados, meaning a blow-fish, a species that has the power of distending itself with air —seems to refer to the blowing or spouting of the whale, as from a pair of bellows (pica). Vernacular Names. All the whales of this genus have an adipose fin of varyiyg size on the after part of the back, hence are spoken of collectively as the Finback or Finner Whales. In the present species, how- ever, this fin is largest of all, high and faleate, affording a fairly characteristic field mark. On account of its general distribution and abundance, this whale fairly merits the name Common Finback Whale bestowed upon it. Among seamen it is also spoken of as the Razorback or the Pike Whale, in allusion to the high dorsal fin, or ‘pike’ as it is called by the fisherfolk of the English coast because of its fancied resemblance to that ancient weapon. Another term sometimes used by the English fishermen is Sprat Whale, for at certain times of the year it is found following the shoals of sprat or herring. The Scandinavian word ‘rorqual’ (from rohr, a tube, and hval, whale, in reference to the folds or plaits on the throat) has been adopted into our tongue for the Finbacks, and was even latinized to make the generic term Rorqualus by Frederic Cuvier. Hence the term Common Rorqual is sometimes used for this species. Among the earlier writers the Finback was often referred to as the Jubartes, or Dubertus, which was further shortened to Gibbar, Jubart, or corrupted to Jupiter-fish. The origin of these names is perhaps from the Latin jubatus meaning ‘fringed with long hair,’ a term there- fore, descriptive of the long hanging bristles of the whalebone plates. Another and equally probable supposition is that the word comes from the provincial name Gibbar of the Bis- cayne fishermen, which is in Latin gibbero dorso (with a hump on the back). At the present time these names seem to have dropped out of use. In other languages the name commonly applied to this whale is an equivalent of Finback or Finwhale thus Finnfisch or Finwal in German. The bristles or hair-like fringes of the whalebone plates, through their fancied resemblance to a hanging beard, have also given 180 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. rise to the name Bartenwalen (Bardehvalen in Norwegian) or Bearded Whales as applied by German and Scandinavian writers to the Finbacks. Description. Form.— In striking contrast to the Right Whale and the Humpback, the Fin Whales are of elongate and graceful shape — ‘‘clipper-built.”” This species, in particular, is of exceed- ingly beautiful lines, the head elongated and narrower in proportion to its width than in the others of the genus, the body long and evenly tapering with a high faleate fin on the back nearly over the anus, the peduncle or ‘small’ contracting towards the flukes with an elegant curve in both dorsal and ventral outlines. The great lower jaw bows outward so as to receive the narrowing upper jaw within its wall-like lips, and protrudes considerably beyond the tip of the snout. The pectorals or flippers are not especially elongated, in fact, are comparatively short, about 11 to 13 percent of the total length, rather narrow and pointed with the anterior margin and distal part of the posterior margin much straighter than in the Blue Whale. The flukes are distinctly and deeply notched at the middle of the posterior border; their anterior edge is gently convex, the posterior slightly concave below the tips, then swelling to a gentle convexity in the middle. The total breadth across the flukes is about one fifth the entire length. The eye is described by True as having a brown iris with a narrow and irregular white border. The pupil is elliptical and with its long axis horizontal. The ear opening is directly on the surface some thirty inches behind the eye and very slightly below it. It is oblong or nearly round and of a size large enough to admit with diffi- culty the ‘point of the little finger” (Struthers). The opening narrows, and at a distance of four or five inches from the exterior is ‘‘not larger than a crow quill.” Plicae.— The throat is marked by numerous longitudinal folds or plicae, like a series of ridges and valleys, which permit of considerable extension and by means of a superficial layer of muscular tissue may be brought together again. The purpose of this adaptation 1s not wholly clear. Possibly it allows a greater extension of the lungs, or more probably, it permits a great quantity of water to be engulfed, from which the small animals constituting the food, are strained out by the whalebone sieve, on closing the jaws. Still a third supposi- tion is that by contraction of these folds, the whale is able to decrease its bulk and sink more easily in diving. The number of the plicae varies greatly, but in a line between the pectoral flippers, averages about seventy with extremes fifty-six and eighty as recorded by True in seven Newfoundland individuals. Not only do they run longitudinally from the lower part of the lips back nearly to the navel, but they often bifurcate, coalesce, or send off side branchlets, binding the entire system together. Posteriorly many of the plicae unite again so that the number is reduced here. There are also a few short furrows between the corner of the mouth, y 4 —— COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 181 and the pectoral fin and above and below the root of the latter. The breadth of the abdominal ridges is about two inches near the middle of their length, and twice that posteriorly. Color.— As seen in life at close range, the general color of the Finback above, is dull gray- ish brown (sepia, as the artist Millais says, passing into brownish gray on the flanks). This rapidly darkens after death, and becomes quite black after a short exposure, a fact which has led to some misconception as to the true color. The lower surfaces of the body, including the ventral side of the pectorals and flukes, and also the right mandible and more or less of the right-hand side of the upper lip, are white. The line of demarcation between the dark of the upper side and the white of the belly, though fairly well defined, is most irregular, and the one passes gradually into the other at the sides. On the left-hand side of the body, the dark color commences usually at or just back from the point of the jaws, and extends part way, often nearly to the midline, including the summits as well as the troughs of the plicae laterally, but the troughs alone more ventrally, while in the mid-region of the lower side these furrows too are white. Just in advance of the pectoral there is usually a darker tongue or two of color passing ventrally, where both ridge and trough of the plicae are pigmented over a narrow area. A somewhat similar tongue of dark color may be present behind the pectoral, invading the whitish of the sides. There may also be irregular dark blotches like islands on the sides of the throat, and usually one just behind the anus. Usually a light marking, ill defined, from the region of the ear opening of the right side, ‘““eurves strongly upward, then downward, and terminates at or above the anterior insertion of the pectoral fin. On the left side another light line usually starts at the eye, and may run under or through rather than over the ear, and terminate at the insertion of the pectoral” (True, 1904, p. 124). Most remarkable is what appears to be a definite and constant asymmetry, in that the right mandible, and commonly the tip of the right side of the snout are white. Even the whale- bone plates at the anterior end of the right side are likewise white. It should be added that the white of the lower surface of the pectorals may extend around to their front edge or tip, but that on the flukes the white does not quite reach the margin ventrally. Variations A number of specimens are described in detail by True (1904, p. 121) to show the individual variation in color pattern. Some seem paler than others, due to the vary- ing degree to which the gray areas encroach on the belly and throat, or the presence of streaks and patches of darker color about the anus or the median line of the peduncle. The white of the right side of the head may include the entire lip from the tip of the snout to the angle of the mouth, or it may be confined to the anterior third or fourth. The post-anal gray mark, -may in some cases be nearly obsolete. In one instance the white of the right side of the head was so extensive as to exclude all gray color from the ridges in front of the pectoral. On the left side, the mandible is usually dark nearly to its tip but the white may extend to about the 182 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. fourth furrow of that side. In one individual only there was an irregular pure white blotch on the right side of the dorsal fin near its tip. True noted in some individuals a darker gray band passing from above the eye upward and backward on to the shoulder. ‘There is commonly a light gray, or whitish, mark under the eye, especially on the right side, and sometimes a similar mark around the right ear.” In occasional specimens the brownish gray of the flanks extends on to the under surface, giving it a darker cast, instead of the clear white of the normal coloration. Such individuals are supposed by the whalemen to be hybrids between this species and the Blue Whale, and hence are called Bastard Whales. But there is no reason to suppose that the two species hybridize, or that these peculiar individuals are more than variations from the normal pattern. Hair.— The Cetacea have lost all trace of a hairy covering on their bodies, but on certain parts of the head a few hairs still persist, as remnants of what we may suppose was in past ages, a scanty supply, similar perhaps to that of the modern elephants. In the toothed whales, the hairs are no longer found in adults, though young or foetal specimens may show a few in definite spots. Among the whalebone whales, however, a considerable number is retained throughout life. These are restricted to definite parts of the outer surfaces of the jaws, and correspond roughly to the vibrissae or ‘feelers’ of certain other mammals. They are most numerous in the Right Whales and in the Humpback, but in the Balaenopterae are fewer in number and with a much more definite distribution. The Common Finback possesses two series of these short grayish bristles on each side of the upper jaw. The outer row begins about over the angle of the mouth, and runs to the tip of the snout. It consists of a series of some eight single bristles set at fairly regular intervals parallel with the outer rim of the rostrum and a short distance in from that edge. The second row is nearly parallel to this, of eight or nine bristles, but is closer to the median line. It commences back of the blowholes and passes anteriorly along the median ridge of the snout, to a point some distance behind the tip. On each side of the lower jaws are two other series of short whitish bristles. One consists of some nine in all, set at considerable intervals along the middle of the outer edge of the ramus to a point just in front of the eye. The other is a short vertical row at the tip of the jaw on each side, made up of about fourteen hairs, rather close together (Lillie, 1910). ® A recent investigator (Japha, 1911) has made a microscopic study of these hairs. He finds that their structure is much like that of the ordinary mammalian hair, except that the sebaceous glands are lacking. They have a well developed bulbus, supplied with blood vessels, and, what is of great interest, nerve endings. This latter fact indicates that the hairs are sensory and as had been previously suggested, are probably tactile organs, whose function may be to indicate the presence of the minute crustaceans or small fishes on which these whales | feed. Baleen.— The baleen or whalebone plates are about 430 in number counting along the COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 183 external side of the mouth, where they are longest. Toward the median line of the palate, however, there are some four ranks of smaller, narrower plates so that the whole series forms a gradual slope decreasing from the exterior to the median line of the mouth. The lingual side of these triangular plates is fringed with long bristles that form a matted and tangled mass, whereby the minute crustaceans on which the whale feeds, are strained out as by a sieve, from the water taken into the mouth. Delage, who made a careful study of the arrange- ‘ment of the baleen plates, found the external row to consist of some 430 plates, then passing toward the center of the mouth, came two ranks of shorter and smaller plates, each of about the same number as the first. Then followed a fourth rank, consisting of twice as many plates and finally a fifth rank, whose plates are smallest of all in size but from four to six times as numerous as those of the first. The color of the plates and of their bristles is characteristic. The plates themselves are genetally particolored or streaked vertically. At their outer edge they are dark gray, or purplish, varied internally with streaks of white, but toward the posterior end of the series are more uniformly dark gray. On the right-hand side, a large number of the anterior plates are white, or white externally and more or less streaked with gray internally. As many as half the total number of plates on the right side may be white, producing thus an extraordinary asymmetry in color, for the plates of the left-hand side are dark throughout externally. The coarse bristle-like fringe, as seen when looking into the mouth, is a dull white or yellowish white mass, more or less curly and tangled. The longest blades of whalebone, exclusive of the bristles, measure usually from 20 to 24 inches; the latter dimension is unusual, however, and is given by True (1904) for a very large specimen of 70 feet 8 inches, killed at Newfoundland. External Measurements.— The total length of an adult Common Finback is usually about 60 to 65 feet, and though Cocks has recorded one as long as 80 feet, it is not clear that he per- sonally measured it or that the measurement was in a straight line from snout to caudal notch. True (1904) has tabulated the lengths of twenty-five specimens measured by him at Newfound- land. Of these the largest male was 65 feet long (19.81 meters), the largest female 70 feet 8 inches (21.54 meters). The smallest of fifteen females found containing a foetus (and so sex- ually mature) was 61 feet 10 inches (18.85 meters). Cocks, however, records a female of 55 feet 7 inches (16.94 meters) containing a foetus, and Millais a fifty-foot female also with a foetus. This last is probably near the minimum size of an adult. The data at hand do not warrant the assumption that the females grow to a larger size than the males, though observations at the Newfoundland and Norwegian stations show from two to four feet greater average length for the females captured. The only available measurements of this whale based on a New England example are those given by Dr. Thomas Dwight in volume 2 of the Society’s Memoirs. These are incom- plete, however, and in the following table I have given in addition to these the dimensions 184 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. of the largest male and female recorded by True (1904, p. 116) from Newfoundland, to which I have added the relative percent that each measurement bears to the total length. External Measurements of the Common Finback. Gloucester, Mass. | Newfoundland Newfoundland 9 | a | 9 Ft. In. | Meters | % || Ft In Meters % Ft. In. | Meters % Total length, snout to notch of flukes |48 0 | 14.63 100 |61 2 | 18.64 | 100 70. =8 | 21.54] 100 Tip of snout to eye 9°8 | 2:95) 20.11/12) 6:5) 3.80 520.414 1. |) 4 eon) ag9 « « «© blowhole (center) — | | Let Sa sete sean! 10] 3 /Or hea « « «ant. insertion of pec- | | toral || caseee eles « « «vost. insertion of pec- | toral = | 20. 4 6.19) S325) 235 “90 72241) 3826 ee « “ant. base of dorsalfin |36 7 |11.15) 76.2}/48 10 |13.86] 71.6)| 49 10 |15.19| 70.5 Notch of flukes to anus 14 3 | 4.34] 296/117 0 SIS 20a 20) 228 SGrla) | e285 ee achitors 15 6 4.72| 32.2 = 22 51] 6.83] 31.7 ce & 6“ penis (center of orifice) — ||21 9 6.63 | 35.5 — et cs aka eedeTl ave) 20 11 6.37| 43.5||26 7 8.1 43.4 || 31 10] 9.70] 45.0 Length of pectoral from head of humerus >» 4 15625) LON v4 2.23] 11.9))| 8 10) 2.69) 1274 « « « “~ tip to post. | insertion = | oO | D522) 8:11) 6 -0 | 1783) 84 Greatest breadth of pectoral 1 4 0:40) 2e7i) Vat, | Or58))) F321 2 ONO oi sors Height of dorsal fin iy ee) Osehy Pee ily 5) Ose] Bes) ab 1G) || O53) 2.4 Length of base of dorsal fin 2 0.78| 5.3] 3 8 | E23) 620) or S| eles oe Center of eye to center of ear opening | 2. 3 0.68) 4.6]/ 3 1.5] 0.95) 5.0)) 3 4] 1.02) 4.7 Breadth across flukes = 15. 2 | 4:69) 2427 915,. 24) 462) 274 Length of blowholes 0 6 CO) ils) ah X0) | Weight.— The specific gravity of a Fin Whale is slightly more than that of sea water so that when freshly killed it sinks, but the generation of gases due to decomposition eventually brings it to the surface. The weight of a 60-foot specimen, according to Murie (1865) was estimated at 45 tons. Guldberg (1907) has suggested a method for obtaining the approxi- mate weight of a whale by means of a mathematical formula. The body is likened to a solid produced by placing two cones of equal diameter base to base, the height of the posterior cone twice that of the anterior. If the greatest diameter (D) (3 the circumference) and the total length, are known it is possible to obtain the volume of a cone by the formula (V = 37 D?L). This, if the specific gravity be assumed to be the same as that of water, gives also the weight. Guldberg averaged the lengths and girths of twenty-one Finbacks ranging between 51 and 68 feet long, and from these obtained a mean of 62.5 feet (19.45 meters) for the length and 29.6 COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 185 feet (2.99 meters) for the greatest girth or the diameter. Applying these figures in the formula he obtained 45.8 tons or 45,800 kilo for the weight, which accords remarkably with Murie’s figure for a 60-foot Finback. According to Wilcox, the 60-foot whales killed in the Gulf of Maine in 1885, weighed about 25 tons each, but it is not stated how this figure was obtained. Auditory Apparatus.— An interesting recent account of the internal ear is given by Lillie (1910, p. 775) who dissected this organ in an adult Finback taken on the Irish coast. The auditory canal is continued backward from the minute external opening until it reaches the posterior border of the squamosal bone. It then turns inward, and with slightly increased diameter (1.5 inches) follows along the posterior edge of the squamosal to reach the tympanic membrane, which, curiously, is sac-like in shape somewhat like the finger of a glove. This sac 1s about four inches long; its blind end lies in the auditory canal, and its open end joins the wall of this canal, and by a ligament connects with the malleus, which is fused with the oval tympanic bone. The semicircular canals in the middle ear are present but small. The eustachian tube is about one foot in length and connects the cavity of the pterygoid fossa with the chamber at the junction of the nasal passages. There is a large plug of ear wax in the tube of the external auditory meatus. It is not certain that sound is received through the ear, though the tympanic bones may respond to vibrations through the water. Lille suggests that the curious tympanic membrane, shaped like a glove-finger, may act as a pressure gauge, by coming in direct contact with water in the external ear passage, and thereby apprise the whale of its near approach to the surface when it rises to spout. Musculature.— The muscular anatomy of the Finback Whale probably differs little in gen- eral from that of the Little Piked Whale as described by Carte and MacAlister (1868). Delage (1885) describes the large panniculus which covers all the anterior half of the lower portion of the body, beginning anteriorly on the arch of the jaws and extending back to the umbilicus. It thus corresponds roughly with the area of the external plicae. Superficially it is strongly united to the blubber, especially on the throat where it seems inserted into the skin, and by aponeurosis. Struthers (1871, p. 111) seems to have been the first to make a careful dissection of the muscles of the hand. These are reduced to three on the inner or flexor aspect and a single one on the outer or extensor aspect of the hand. The latter corresponds to the extensor com- munis digitorum. It arises from the inner aspect of both radius and ulna and from the apo- neurosis between them. It becomes tendinous, and opposite the middle of the carpus sends off four tendons, one to each digit. Of the three flexor muscles, the flexor carpi ulnaris has the usual relations, arising from the olecranon cartilage and ulna near it, and inserting by tendon into the pisiform cartilage. The flexor digitorum ulnaris is the largest of the muscles, arising along the center of the forearm, partly from the end of the humerus, ulna, and inter- osseous tissue. Its tendinous expansion finally gives off four branches one to each digit, but 186 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. that to digit I joins the tendon of the remaining flexor, flexor digitorum radialis (or longus pollicis) whose origin is along the proximal two thirds of the radius and the interosseous mem- brane. The presence of this muscle is in support of Kiikenthal’s contention that digit I is retained, and digit III is the missing one. The function of these muscles is doubtless to give stiffness to the paddle. Visceral Anatomy.— An account of the anatomy of a male Finback stranded on the English coast, was published by Murie in 1865. It was an adult, 60 feet long, with the epi- physes of the bones fused. The oesophagus is described as 7 or 8 feet long, and of such a diameter that “the closed fist could be passed with ease through any part of its course.’ In Newfoundland specimens, True (1904, p. 128) found the width of the gullet to be about 7 inches. The stomach consists of four separate compartments, which communicate by round and some- what constricted openings. The first division is large and rounded like a great bag, some 99 inches on the greater curvature; the second is more cylindrical, opening from the upper part of the first division, and is about 97 inches long. Its walls are slightly thicker and in both are plicated. The third and fourth divisions are shorter and cylindrical. Immediately below the last cavity of the stomach the hepatic duct enters. The total length of the small intestine of Murie’s specimen was 248 feet or four times the length of the whale. The large intestine measured about 40 feet. There is no caecum. A remarkable adaptation to aquatic life is found in the Cetacea whereby a projection of the epiglottis extends upward from the pharynx or throat as a tube into the posterior narial opening of the skull, so that a continuous passage is formed from the blowholes to the lungs, and thus effectually prevents the entrance of water into the lungs from the mouth. .7-0 n Off Marblehead, Mass. AQUA Soe ey cell nt cl tae cil lev etait | epee 1 Off Provincetown, Mass. 191/53] ayer ee a sell Seeel | ot ere 10 Totals 1+ | 2+ |3+/5+ | 6+ | 18+ | 30+ | 12+ | 12+ | 13+ |4+4 |4+ In |1n |4n |9n |6n | 7m | 5n | 8n | 2n | 2n |3n | In 1 COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 221 It at once appears from a consideration of this table that Finback Whales are most com- monly met with off the eastern coasts of New England between April and October, both in- elusive; are less common in March and November and December; while in January and February they are rarely seen. These facts indicate that during the colder months Finback Whales leave our shores in some degree, but there can be little doubt that temperature, although a determining cause, is of indirect influence only to the extent that it affects the distribution or abundance of the organisms on which the whales subsist. The deposit of fat or blubber which encases the whale must act to protect the animal from discomfort through changes of water temperatures of moderate degree, but where this deposit is very thin as inside the mouth, the cooler temperature of the water must tend somewhat to lower that of the body. Yet Finbacks are common during summer in the Arctic seas where the waters are much colder than off our Massachusetts coast at the same season, which shows that they can accommodate themselves to a moderate range of temperature. That it is the presence or absence of food which governs the appearance of these whales, and notably the season of abundance of herring in our waters, will I think, be apparent from further analysis of these records. The habits of the herring have been briefly mentioned under the heading of Food. As there stated, they seem to seek deep water during the winter, although occasional catches are made at that season; but in early spring they approach the shores, so that in Passamaquoddy Bay, where their appearance has been carefully studied, the fish weirs are tended regularly from the first of April to the end of the year, the times when whales are most often observed. The greatest abundance of herring is in July and August which closely corresponds with the time when the whales are most numerous. At this time great shoals of young herring, the progeny of the previous autumnal spawning, appear on the New England coast, and remain until the winter, at intervals coming in enormous quantities. The larger fish are spawning in fall from about the last of September through October and approach the shores for that purpose. After October they disappear more or less, though usually scattered schools may be found in favorable localities during December. Their appearance during the winter months seems to be irregular and uncertain, but occasionally large numbers do come, and with them the whales. Thus of the two January records given, the first relates to a 1901 report that ‘‘whales and herring have appeared off Provincetown. The fishermen have caught many of the latter.” The second is of one killed near Eastport, Maine, that had a large herring entrapped in the baleen, showing that it had been in pursuit of those fish. Of the three February records, two relate to whales washed ashore dead, while the other is of a school that appeared in Prov- incetown Bay, about the first of that month, 1905, and were said to be pursuing the large her- ring then in those waters. Of the March records where details are given, the same is true. Thus in 1880, large numbers came into Provincetown Bay early in March, in pursuit of 2 222 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. “oa “immense quantities of herring and shrimps”; and in 1899, several Finbacks about March Ist were seen in the same waters “‘in pursuit of scattered schools of small herring.”’ In late April, 1896, a “good-sized school of whales” is reported about Cape Cod following the herring school. In 1880, the school of whales remained much of the summer in the Gulf of Maine and were also reported to be feeding on sand eels (Ammodytes) which appeared in June in abundance. Again, in late December, 1895, ‘‘a large school of herring and whales”’ is reported in the Gulf of Maine, off Southern Head Station, Grand Manan. During the summer months the Finbacks are also feeding largely on small crustaceans, on our coasts, and the herring likewise pursue these. Their presence is therefore an additional factor in attracting the whales. In calm weather these crustaceans appear in vast swarms, tinging the sea with red at times. When the surface of the sea is much ruffled they seek the quieter waters at moderate depths, and apparently are much less evident in the winter months. It is plain that they must be gathered in larger masses when they seek the surface than when they retire to the depths since in the former case their further upward progress is checked by a common barrier. The whales probably find it much easier to engulf them in quantity when thus assembled near the surface, and it seems unlikely that they could successfully pursue them at any but the most superficial depths. Direct evidence is wanting that the Finbacks feed on these shrimps in winter on our coasts, though it may well be that the latter appear during favorable weather. To conclude, it seems probable that this whale is largely regulated in its appearance on our coast by the time when the herring schools are present, particularly during the winter months; while the abundance of the small shrimps and copepods in summer together with the herring accounts for the greater abundance of the cetaceans during the summer and fall. The herring in turn are probably dependent in some degree upon the copepods and other small crustaceans which abound during the warm months in the shallower onshore waters. Whether they both retire in inclement seasons to deeper water beyond the feeding range of the whales is unproven, but seems probable. Finback Whaling on the New England Coast. While our forefathers vigorously pursued the Right Whale on the New England coasts during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they seldom molested the swifter moving Finback and Sulphurbottom Whales. This was in part because these yielded only a small return of oil and whalebone in comparison with the Right Whale, but chiefly because they were unable to kill them with hand harpoons from an open boat except by some lucky chance. For so swift and strong are these leviathans that unless at once lanced in a vital part, it is almost impossible to tire them out or work the boat up again within striking distance. COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 223 That intrepid mariner, Captain John Smith, seems to have been the first to attempt the capture of this species of whale in New England waters. His efforts were confined to the Maine coast about Monhegan Island. But he met with no success, as his cheerful narrative sets forth. “In the month of April, 1614,” he writes,! “with two ships from London, of a few merchants, I chanced to arrive in New-England, a part of America, at the isle of Mona- higgan, in forty-three and a half of northerly latitude. Our plot was there to take whales, and make trials of a mine of gold and copper. If those failed, fish and furs was then our refuge, to make ourselves savers howsoever. We found this whale-fishing a costly conclusion. We saw many, and spent much time in chasing them; but could not kill any, they being a kind of jubartes, and not the whale that yields fins and oil, as we expected.” Evidently the Right Whales had mostly gone to the north, and the Finbacks only were met with, to the great discomfiture of the resourceful captain and his men who none the less, did make themselves “savers” through trading for furs with the Indians. The early whalers of Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod were well acquainted with the Finback, but generally made no attempt to capture it. Paul Dudley, in his essay on the New England whales (1734, p. 425), writes that it is somewhat longer than the Right Whale. ‘‘but not so bulky, much swifter, and very furious when struck, and very difficultly held; their Oil is not near so much as that of the Right Whale, and the Bone of little Profit, being short and knobby.” Similarly, Hector St. John Crévecoeur, who visited Nantucket at about the period of the Revolution, writes in his Letters from an American Farmer (1782), that the Finback and Sulphurbottom, though familiar to the Nantucket whalers, were never or seldom killed by them, “as being extremely swift,’ and “the grampus, [Balaenoptera acuto-rostrata?| thirty feet long, never killed on the same account.” ” Nevertheless the sight of such great whales close at hand must often have tempted the hardy whalemen to make hazard with harpoon or lance or even with the musket, if perchance they might capture these swifter species. So, in the Boston News Letter, of September 3d, 1722, is advertised a court of admiralty to be held at Boston on the last Wednesday in the month, to adjudicate on a ‘drift-whale’ found floating near the Brewsters, and towed ashore in August. It was much wasted and decayed, and on cutting it up a musket ball was found in the carcass, that had doubtless been fired into it and had caused its death. The advertisement notifies the public that “if any Persons can try any Claim to said Whale so as to make out a Property,” they shall appear duly at the said court. From the fact that the whale was killed in August it is probable that it was a Balaenop- tera. Doubtless some of the ‘drift whales’ mentioned in the earlier records were Finbacks, 1Smith, Capt. John. A Description of New England, London, 1616; reprint in Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1837, ser. 3, vol. 6, p. 103. 2 J. Hector St. John Crévecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer, London, 1782. Reprint, New York, 1904, see ios UrAsy 224 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. that had escaped, mortally wounded, to die and later wash ashore. Thus Weeden! notes that “drift whales appear in the Boston newspapers,— a finback at Nantasket in 1719 [Boston Gazette, Feb. 28th] and again in 1720 [Boston News Letter, Feb. 15th]; at Marblehead in 1723 [Boston News Letter, Aug. 22d]; and a flotsam ‘between the Capes’ with a harpoon ‘in her’ in 1725 [Boston News Letter, July 15th]. Always in the feminine, these valuable strays are brought into the Admiralty Court with every formality of advertisement to secure justice to possible claimants.” Since the days of Captain John Smith, 1614, no systematie attempt to capture Fin Whales on the coast of New England appears to have been made until about 1810, when according to R. E. Earll,? a shore-fishery was begun and successfully prosecuted for a number of years, from Prospect Harbor, in Frenchman’s Bay, Maine. This industry was undertaken by Stephen Clark and L. Hiller, of Rochester, Mass., who ‘“‘came to the region, and built try-works on the shore, having their lookout station on the top of an adjoining hill. The whales usually followed the menhaden to the shore, arriving about the Ist of June, and remaining till Septem- ber.... Ten years later they began using small vessels in the fishery, and by this means were enabled to go farther from land. The fishery was at its height between 1835 and 1840 when an average of six or seven whales were taken yearly.... The business was discontinued about 1860, since which date but one or two whales have been taken.” It is probable that Hump- back Whales constituted the chief part of the catch, if indeed any others were taken at all. Clark ° further informs us that ‘‘shore-whaling in the vicinity of Tremont, [Maine] began about 1840. Mr. Benjamin Beaver and a small crew of men caught three or more whales annually for about twenty years, but gave up the business in 1860. No more whales were taken from this time till the spring of 1880, when one was taken and brought into Bass Harbor, and yielded 1,200 gallons of oil but no bone of value. “Capt. J. Bickford, a native of Winter Harbor, is reported by Mr. C. P. Guptil to have cruised off the coast in 1845 in schooner Huzza, and to have captured eight whales, one of which was a finback, the rest humpback whales. This schooner made only one season’s work, but in 1870 Captain Bickford again tried his luck in a vessel from Prospect Harbor and cap- tured one finback whale.” Of the method of whaling as employed by these men, we have no record, but doubtless they attacked the whales from their whaleboats, and after making fast with the harpoon endeavored at once to reach a vital spot with the lance. If this were not accomplished the whale stood a good chance of escape. Such an adventure is illustrated by an anecdote reported in the Nantucket Inquirer for December 14, 1846 (vol. 26, no. 142). ‘On 1 Weeden, W. B. Economic and Social History of New England, 1890, vol. 1, p. 439. 2 Warll, R. E. The Coast of Maine and its Fisheries. In Goode’s Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the U. S., 1887, sect. 2, p. 30. ’ Clark, A. Howard. The Whale Fishery. In Goode’s Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the U. 8., 1887, sect. 5, vol. 2, p. 40. COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 225 Monday morning two large Finbacks were seen playing side by side in Provincetown harbor, whereupon Capt. Cook of the bark Fairy, and Capt. Soper, late of the brig St. Thomas, manned two boats and pounced upon the leviathans.... Capt. Cook gave his customer a harpoon and a lance as quick as he could dart, and turned him up in about fifteen minutes. Capt. Soper also fastened to the other, but so far aft as not to affect the vitals, in consequence of which he could not get alongside to lance him. The whale ran his boat to Truro, and after cutting down the chocks of the boat and making her leak, the line was cut and the whale went away with the harpoon and about 50 fathoms of line.” Such, therefore, was the uncertain and desultory manner in which the capture of the Finback Whale was attempted on our coast previous to 1850. At about this time, however, came the introduction of the whaling gun and the deadly bomb-lance, whose effectiveness caused a short-lived revival of this industry here, with the Finback and Humpback as the special objects of pursuit. About 1847, C. C. Brand, of Norwich, Connecticut, invented a harpoon gun weighing from eighteen to twenty-three pounds, to be fired from the shoulder. The Nan- tucket Inquirer, in that year mentions this weapon as a great innovation: “‘We saw yesterday at the store of Captain E. W. Gardner a very curious contrivance for killing whales. It is a short gun weighing some twenty-five pounds — the stock being of solid brass — from which a harpoon is to be fired into the animal. The handle of the harpoon goes into the gun about a foot, and a line is fastened to it, of course outside the gun, by which the whale is to be held. There is also a bomb lance for the purpose of killing the animal. The instrument is loaded with powder, and a slow match is led from the magazine to the end which goes into the gun. When the lance is fired into the whale the slow match ignites; and in about half a minute the fire reaches the powder which is in the head of the instrument, which instantly explodes, killing the animal outright. At least, that is what the article is intended to do. The whole apparatus is certainly very ingenious; whether or not it is really an improvement on the present mode of killing whales is more than we are able to say. That is a question that must be settled by the whalemen themselves.” At about this time also, one Robert Allen, likewise of Norwich, Connecticut, invented a bomb-lance to be fired from a shoulder gun. It was a long metal tube filled with powder, which was exploded by means of a time fuse. This proved ineffective as well as dan- gerous, because it lacked feathering of any sort to make it travel end on. This defect, how- ever, was overcome by Brand, who in 1852, devised feathers of rubber, which were attached at the proximal end and folded up when the lance was thrust into the gun. This bomb-lance was simply shot into the whale, and no line was attached, so that if not immediately fatal the whale made off, and might or might not be recovered. In case of the Finback Whale, 1 Spears, J. R. The Story of the New England Whalers, New York, 1908, p. 220. 226 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. which usually sinks at once on being killed, the carcass might not appear for two or three days until buoyed to the surface by the accumulated gases of decomposition. This style of bomb-lance met with great favor among the Cape Cod whalers and later was much used in shore whaling. In early July, 1854, the schooner William P. Dolliver sailed from Nantucket for a short whaling cruise on the Shoals. When a little distance outside Nantucket bar, the whalers saw a large Finback so close at hand that the bomb-lance was shot into it from the schooner’s deck, killing the animal at once. It sank in seven fathoms of water, but was raised with grapplings procured from the shore, and later towed with the schooner back to the harbor by the steamer Massachusetts. It was thought that the blubber would yield sixty or seventy barrels of oil, worth in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars.'| This would indicate a large whale, or a large estimate. The incident is further of interest as indicating that at this time the pursuit of whales, probably Humpbacks and Finbacks, was undertaken in a small way on the Shoals, and was probably made much more profitable through the introduction of the whaling gun with its explosive lance. The Nantucket Inquirer of November 21st, 1855 (vol. 37, no. 137) notes that several Finbacks had of late been seen in Provincetown Harbor, and that on the 17th of that month a single one had appeared, and immediately became an object of pursuit by some fifteen boats, hastily manned. ‘About thirty minutes after he was first seen, he was struck by a harpoon from one of the boats, when he immediately commenced running, dragging the boat and nearly filling it with water, but in some manner he cleared himself.’’ Evidently, from this account, the use of the bomb-lance had not yet become universal. Two years later, we learn from the same source” that about the middle of April, 1857, “there was fine sport in Provincetown on Monday last with boats pursuing Finback Whales. Two of them were harpooned, but the rapid movement of this species of whale, does not suffer them to be taken in this way. They are now taken with a bomb-lance, or a lance which is fitted with a charge of powder, to explode after it enters the whale.’’ A similar incident is related in December, 1872, when a Finback appeared in Provincetown Harbor, and was har- pooned by Captain Isaac Fisher. Although it received three lance thrusts, it finally parted the line and escaped. Again in late October, 1868, a boat’s crew put off from Nantucket in pursuit of four Finbacks, seen in the bay, but after following them for some miles to the west- ward, was obliged to relinquish the chase.4 In the latter half of October, 1874, “large schools of whales,” probably Finbacks for the most part, were seen in Vineyard Sound, and from 1 Nantucket Inquirer, vol. 34, no. 80, July 7, 1854. 2 Nantucket Inquirer, vol. 30, no. 41, Apl. 20, 1857. 3 Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, vol. 53, no. 24, Dec. 14, 1872. 4 Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, vol. 49, no. 18, Oct. 31, 1868. COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 227 Noman’s Land, Gay Head, and Cuttyhunk. ‘Several first-class whalemen took a whaleboat, b] with tow lines, harpoons, lances, bomb guns,” and went in pursuit. Off Canapitset, a whale, said to have been a Sulphurbottom, was shot with a bomb-lance, but immediately sank. A Finback was shot near Cuttyhunk, but also sank. It was said that four in all were shot with bomb-lances, but none was recovered (Forest and Stream, vol. 3, p. 188, Oct. 29, 1874). But the Nantucketers were now passing to other pursuits, and when in 1876, a Finback was “not a whale boat reported near their shore, the Inquirer’ bemoaned the fact that there was and gear with which to pursue.” On the North Shore, some fishermen in late October, 1870, captured a Finback about ten miles off Gloucester, and towed it to Boston for exhibition. The oil which it finally yielded was said to have been but six barrels.” The year 1880 marks the revival of shore whaling in Massachusetts waters, and for some fifteen years thereafter much profit was had from the capture of Finbacks and Humpbacks. Most of the whaling was carried on from Provincetown, and the weapon used was generally the bomb-lance fired from a shoulder gun. A. Howard Clark * relates that ‘‘early in March, 1880, there came into Provincetown Bay and harbor immense quantities of herring and shrimps. They were followed by a great number of Finback Whales, which were here most of the time in greater or less numbers until about the middle of May, when they all left. During the time they were here many of them were killed with bomb lances. They sank when killed and remained at the bottom some two or three days. They then came up to the top of the water, and as they were liable to come up in the night or during rugged weather, when the whalemen were not there to take them, many of them drifted out to sea and were lost. Thirty-eight were brought in and landed at Jonathan Cook’s oil works on Long Point. The blubber was taken off and the oil extracted from it in the above-named factory. Two others brought in were sold to parties who took one of them to Boston and the other to New York, where they were exhibited, making forty whales in all saved. Early in June immense quantities of sand eels (Ammodytes) came in our harbor [Provincetown] and bay and remained here several days. About the 10th of June there appeared plenty of whales, feeding on the sand eels. They were again attacked by our men, when a number of them were killed in a few days, of which ten were saved and landed at the oil works. Probably as many more that were not killed outright received their death wounds and went out of the bay and soon after died and were lost. The forty-eight whales delivered at the oil works yielded 950 barrels of oil, sold at an average price of 40 cents per gallon.” 1 Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, vol. 57, no. 17, Oct. 21, 1876. 2 Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, vol. 51, no. 20, Nov. 12, 1870. 3 Clark, A. Howard: in Goode’s Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. 8., 1887, sect. 2, p. 230. 228 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. The proceeds of these 48 whales were: 29,925 gallons of oil at 40 cents $11,970.00 8,750 Ibs. whalebone from 35 whales at 15 cents 1,312.50 one whale sold for exhibit at Boston 350.00 one whale sold for exhibit at New York 405 .00 $14,037 .50 A report! from Gloucester, Massachusetts, under date of May 13, 1880, refers again to the numbers of whales in the near shore waters at this time. Four dead ones had been towed into the harbor that had doubtless been shot and lost by the Provincetown fishermen. Three were towed into Boston, one to Newburyport, one to Cape Porpoise, one to Portland, one to Mt. Desert; two drifted ashore at Scituate, two at Barnstable, one at Brewster, one at Orleans, two at Wellfleet, one on the back of Cape Cod, and one was stripped of its blubber at sea (A. Howard Clark, 1887). ““When the first whales were killed it was supposed the whalebone in their mouths was worthless. It was not saved. Subsequently some was saved and sold at 15 cents per pound. The average quantity of bone in each whale is about 250 pounds.... . “Tn the spring of 1881 the whales came into the bay again, but not in so large numbers. Fifteen were killed which furnished 300 barrels of oil. ...No whales have come in of late.” In a letter from Mr. J. Henry Blake, dated September 8, 1881, accompanying some bones of a foetal Finback in the Museum of Comparative Zodlogy, he states that fifty-one whales were killed that spring by the Provincetown whalers. The female from which the foetus was taken, was about sixty-five feet long, very fat, and yielded thirty-two barrels of oil, an unusual amount. It will be seen that the average yield of oil per whale from these Finbacks was in both lots, almost exactly 20 barrels. The annals of whaling at Provincetown indicate a lull in the industry for about four years succeeding 1881. In 1885, however, Finbacks appeared in numbers on the coast, and in this and the following year, many were captured. A report” from Gloucester, Mass., under date of March 8, 1885, says that the fishermen had ‘‘never seen whales so numerous on the eastern shore as at-present. The steamer Fannie Sprague, of Booth Bay, formerly used in the porgy fishery, which has been fitted out as a whaler, shot six whales last week. Two of them were safely towed to Booth Bay, but the other four, which sunk, are buoyed.’”’ The success of the Fannie Sprague and the abundance of whales this year, encouraged others to venture in their pursuit. Accordingly we learn that “during the past two months [March and (?) April, 1885] four steamers have been engaged in this work, viz. Fannie Sprague, Mabel Bird, Hurricane, 1Clark, A. Howard. Bull. U.S. Fish Comm., 1884, vol. 4, p. 404. 2 Martin, S.J. Bull. U.S. Fish Comm., 1885, vol. 5, p. 207. COMMON FINBACK WHALE. _ 229 and Josephine. ‘They cruise off the Maine and Massachusetts shores as far south as Cape Cod. A bomb-lance, fired from a gun held at the shoulder, is used for killing the whales. Up to date about 40 whales have been captured. As the men become expert in the manner of capture, the whales become shy and keep more in deep water. After being killed they usually sink, and it is doubtful if the business, as at present conducted, will last if the whales are driven off from near shore, it being difficult to recover them in over 40 fathoms of water. The whales captured the past few weeks average 60 feet long and weigh about 25 tons each; they yield about 20 barrels of oil, 2 barrels of meat, 5 tons of dry chum, and 2 tons of bone, about $400 being realized from each whale, on the average.” ' The steamer Fannie Sprague was a Booth Bay vessel, but the home port of the three others is not given. Another report! states that five small steamers in all were engaged in the Finback shore fishery in the Gulf of Maine during 1885. The fleet landed part of the whales at Province- town, Massachusetts, and the remainder at the factories in Maine. Capt. Joshua Nickerson of Provincetown was thus engaged at this time and on July 7th, as Mr. J. Henry Blake tells me, shot a Finback in Massachusetts Bay making about the thirty-eighth he had caught. A few days before, July 3d, a male Finback had drifted ashore at the Mt. Desert Light Station, Maine, that had probably been shot by one of these whaling steamers. Larll states” that about seventy-five whales were captured by the combined efforts of these five steamers in 1885. In the following year these whales continued to be numerous offshore, and a report * under date of June, 1886, states that “three steamers are engaged in taking them, being quite suc- cessful, although many that are shot and sink in deep water are not recovered.” One of these three vessels was the A. B. Nickerson, commanded by Captain ‘‘ Josh”? Nickerson, of Province- town, but the names of the two others though not given may be surmised as of those previously engaged. In this same year, according to Jennings° an oil works was set up near Race Point Light, Provincetown, and in 1887 a bone crusher was added for reducing the skeletons of the whales to lime. Of the whaling in 1886, I have found no definite record, but it seems to have been less productive than in 1885, and nothing further is heard of the Maine steamers. Cap- tain Nickerson, however, continued to pursue whales in the home waters during the next ten years with much success. The following brief review of Captain Nickerson’s campaign is based mainly on notes and clippings kindly furnished me by Mr. J. Henry Blake, as well as on reports in the Nantucket Inquirer and Journal. From the last-named source ° it appears that in early June, 1888, the 1 Wilcox, W. A. Bull. U.S. Fish Comm., 1885, vol. 5, p. 169. 2 Smiley, C. W. Bull. U.S. Fish Comm., 1885, vol. 5, p. 337. 3 Earll, R.E. Bull. U.S. Fish Comm., 1886, vol. 6, p. 312. 4 Wileox, W. A. Bull. U.S. Fish Comm., 1886, vol. 6, p. 201. 5 Jennings, H. A. Provincetown or, odds and ends from the tip end, 1890, p. 136. 6 Nantucket Journal, vol. 10, no. 36, June 7, 1888. 230 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. A. B. Nickerson fell in with a school of about ten Finbacks off Cape Cod, and succeeded in killing a large one which sank at once. In the following year a Finback Whale that had been shot about the first of May (1890), was found floating near Egg Rock, Swampscott, and was towed into Deer Cove, Lynn. These reports are doubtless but an echo of the activity of the little steam-whaler, for Mr. Blake, in response to my inquiries, sends me a note from Mr. M. C. Atwood, of Provincetown, in which he says, ‘‘John Rosenthal told me that the highest number of whales that the steamer killed in any one year was fifty-two and other people killed about the same number during the same year, which is quite a slaughter. That was in 1887, he thinks. I remember the year well. At one time Job Cook had at his place on Long Point, fourteen whales. But they are gone now [1903] and it is a rare thing to see one.” The Nantucket Journal for October 4, 1894, makes mention of a school of whales about the Cape at that time, at least one of which was killed. In the previous month, Septem- ber 12, 1894, Captain ‘‘Ed. Walter” Smith of Provincetown, had killed a large Finback off the “Gully.”! But the following year seems to have yielded a greater harvest. A clipping from the Provincetown Beacon in early May, 1895, states that on April 12th, of that year, the first Finback of the season was shot by Captain E. W. Smith and eighteen days later a “‘young whale”? was killed by the Truro trapmen. Captain Fuller in the Vigilant, next killed one which was sold to Boston parties for embalming and exhibition. Captain Nickerson in the Angelina B. Nickerson killed five about the first week of May. The same week Captain Joshua Nickerson shot a “very large whale’, Captain Fuller and Captain ‘‘Ves”’ Ellis each shot one — all Finbacks. Eleven whales in all was thus the total catch up to about the 10th of May of 1895. The Nantucket Journal? also refers to the large Finback caught by Captain Nickerson, and adds that between April 12th and May 16th, he had captured and towed to his oilworks at Herring Cove, Provincetown, no less than eight whales. The season of 1896 was likewise a prosperous one for the local whalers. A clipping dated Provincetown, April 23, 1896, reads: “Steamer A. B. Nickerson, Captain Nickerson, has killed four whales, two of which were Humpbacks, and has landed them at the oilworks in Herring Cove....A good-sized school of whales is reported around the Cape, following up the herring school, and the fleet of small steamers here is on the warpath after them.” Other whales were undoubtedly taken during the remainder of the summer, but how many does not appear. According to the Boston Journal for October 5, 1896, a Finback, sixty-five feet in length, drifted ashore at Nantasket Beach, and had probably been shot by the whalers shortly before. The year 1896 practically closes the Finback whaling in our waters, and the A. B. Nick- erson has gone in search of other quarry. The tryworks have fallen into disuse and though 1 Boston Daily Globe, Apl. 3, 1895. * Nantucket Journal, vol. 17, no. 33, May 16, 1895. COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 231 an occasional whale still appears from time to time in the harbor at Provincetown, there is rarely any special attempt made to capture the visitor. For the oil commands but a small price and the whale guns and bomb-lances are laid on the shelf. The occasional dead whale that now drifts ashore is looked upon rather as a common nuisance than as a prize, and the local Boards of Health rather than the whalemen see to its disposal. Commercial Value. From the facts given in the preceding pages it appears that the average production of forty-six Finbacks killed in our waters in 1885 was about 650.5 gallons (20+ barrels) of oil apiece valued at that time at $260.20. Thirty-five whales produced 250 pounds of whalebone apiece on an average, which at 15 cents a pound, made the yield per whale worth $37.50. The total value of each whale was therefore $297.70, or nearly three hundred dollars. A yield of twenty barrels of oil per whale is perhaps a high average. Atwood mentions fourteen and twenty barrels respectively from two Finbacks. From one large and very fat cow whale, 65 feet long, thirty-two barrels of oil were made, an unusual amount. The oil from whales of this genus and of the Humpback differs from that of the Sperm Whale in its high percentage of glycerine, 6 to 10 percent on an average, or even as much as 14 percent. According to the 1915 report of the New York Chamber of Commerce, the demand for glycerine for the manufacture of explosives has given great impetus to this branch of the whaling industry, particularly in Pacific waters. Most of the oil goes to the English market, and the price has risen from 35 cents a gallon in 1913 to 55 cents in 1915. The baleen of the Finback is, next to that of the Pollack Whale, the best in quality except- ing, of course, that produced by the Arctic Bowhead and the Right Whale. Its manufacture into strips of various sizes and qualities is described by Stevenson (1907). A much greater return than a bare $300 per whale could be had with proper facilities for using the entire carcass. The shore-whaling industry as developed on the Norwegian and Newfoundland coasts of late years has succeeded in utilizing every part of the huge animal, and at the Newfoundland stations I was told in 1903 that a Finback Whale of average size was valued at about a thousand dollars. The fishery there began actively in 1897, and several stations quickly sprang up. These stations consist of a slip on which the whale is drawn from the water by powerful steam winches, a house for the tryworks, another for the machinery. used in converting the flesh into fertilizer, a bone crusher, and houses for the workmen. The blubber is cut off in strips by men using long blades set in the ends of poles. These with the tongue are cut in small pieces, thrown into a hopper where they are further minced, and conveyed by an endless chain of buckets to the vat where the oil is tried out and dipped off into barrels. From part of the residue a glue is made. The carcass, after being stripped of its layer of blubber, 232 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. is reduced to large chunks, which are tried out in open wooden vats in which are coils of steam: piping to supply heat. The oil dipped off from these vats is of a poorer grade and needs first to be bleached by chemicals before it is ready for market. The-boiling process separates the flesh from the bones, and the latter are crushed to be used as lime fertilizer. The meat frag- ments are passed through a long revolving drum in which they are greatly comminuted by swinging knives inside the drum, while at the same time the bits are dried by heat. The result is a coarse powdery material which, when moistened, makes excellent fertilizer. It is also used in Seandinavia for feeding cattle. The plates of whalebone are separated from their attachment to the fibrous mass of the roof of the mouth, are then washed and dried in the sun, sorted and packed into bales for transport. Thus the greater part of the whale is utilized, and the actual waste very small. The Newfoundland companies have, through Dr. L. Riss- muller, developed sundry chemical processes for reducing and saving various parts. The success of one or two companies in the early years of this fishery soon led to the erection of numerous stations on the Newfoundland shores, and the inevitable depletion of the whales resulted disastrously for many of those whose capital was involved. In 1914 the report of the Newfoundland whaling industry showed a marked decline. Of the six ships engaged in the home waters that year only one paid dividends. It secured 65 whales out of a total of 168. Contrast this with the yearly average of 1500 whales for the first years succeeding 1897 when the industry was started! The varying abundange of the whales from season to season, and the chances of the sea are factors to be reckoned with in such enterprises, yet it would seem that if a factory were erected on Cape Cod or Nantucket, for the rendering of whales into oil, lime, and fertilizer there might be a fair chance of a reasonable income. It has even been proposed, on the Pacific coast, to can the meat for ordinary consumption. Those who had tried whale meat at New- foundland, pronounced it very good, somewhat coarser than beef, but otherwise hardly inferior. In Japan it is astaple article of diet. It should be added, that in the modern method of whaling, small steamers are used, and that instead of bomb-lances being shot into the whale with the hope that the dead animal might subsequently be found, a large harpoon, weighing over one hundred pounds, and provided with an explosive cap is used. This harpoon carries a strong four-inch manila cable so that it is seldom a whale is lost, and if its first efforts at flight do not exhaust it, this line ean be warped in until the whale is near enough for a second shot, or it may be lanced from an open boat rowed alongside. On the Labrador coast at the present day the long jaw bones of Fin Whales are used to shoe the wooden runners of the dog-sledges for winter travel. They are allowed to soak in the seawater for a considerable time, which is said to harden the texture of the bone. Strips are then sawed from them half an inch thick and the width of the runner, to which they are attached by pegs of wood. The advantage of this sort of runner is that the snow does not stick to it. a COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 233 Enemies and Parasites. In our waters, the larger whales seem to have little to fear from other predatory creatures. No doubt the fierce Orea or Killer Whale may occasionally attack them but I have no definite evidence on this matter, and the species is rare with us. Ordinarily the Finback Whale does not harbor any barnacles on the body surfaces, though the whalemen tell me that rarely a small species resembling a common ship’s barnacle is found on captured specimens. On the plates of whalebone Lillie (1910, p. 786) has lately recorded for the first time in this species, the presence of multitudes of the minute crustacean Balaenophilus unisetus Auri- villius, a copepod modified for this semiparasitic existence. These minute animals reach an adult size of less than four millimeters and in both young and mature stages are found cling- ing in multitudes to the baleen plates. Lillie’s observations were made on the Irish coast, but the same parasite is to be looked for on this side of the water. Another copepod, Penella balaenopterae, likewise occurs as a parasite of this whale, and . is most remarkably modified for life with its huge host. In the earlier stages, both sexes are of more or less normal appearance, with enlarged thorax, narrower abdomen, and swimming appendages. The adult female, however, burrows with her head deeply into the exterior of the whale, and her entire body becomes transformed into an elongated sac, the head develops horn-like anchors for holding, and the remainder of the body with two long egg sacs and gills trails behind in the water, some eight inches in length. Turner (1905) mentions finding numer- ous specimens in the back of one of these whales. ; Of internal parasites the best known are certain so-called thorn-headed worms of the genus Echinorhynchus, which attach themselves to the lining of the intestine. The sexes are separate, and the larvae pass from the body of the female worm into the intestinal cavity of the whale, whence they are discharged with the faeces. In many other species these young pass the next stage of life as parasites in Crustacea, so it is likely that in some one or other of the minute cope- pods or schizopods on which these whales feed, this second stage will be found. The crustacean host is swallowed in its turn by the whale, and so allows the parasite to pass its adult stage in the whale’s intestine. Borgstrém (1892) was the first to report Hchinorhynchus turbinella from the Common Finback, and it occurs also in the Pollack Whale. A second species, ZL. brevicollis, is lately reported from the intestine of the Finback (Hamilton, 1916, p. 132). Haldane records finding two or three bushels of nematode worms in the stomach of a Finback, which were identified by Von Listow as Ascaris simplex, a species that also occurs in the Harbor Porpoise. In the intestines of Fin Whales killed from the Belmullet Whaling Station on the Irish coast, Hamilton (1915, 1916) has lately reported finding numbers of the trematode, Monostomum plicatum. 234 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. Balaenoptera borealis Lesson. RupourH’s RorquaLt; PoLtiack WHALE. PLATE 13; Fie. 1. SYNONYMY. 1822. Balaena rostrata Rudolphi, Abhandl. K. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, for 1820-21, p. 27-40, pl. 1-5 (not of , Miiller, 1776; not of Fabricius, 1780). 1828. Balaenoptera borealis Lesson, Hist. Nat. Gén. et Partic. des Mamm. et des Oiseaux, Cét&cés, p. 342, pl. 12. 1829. Balaena borealis Fischer, Synopsis Mammalium, p. 524 (in part). 1846. Balaenoptera laticeps Gray, Zool. Voyage Erebus and Terror, Mammalia, p. 20. 1847. Balaena physalus Nilsson, Skandinavisk Fauna, pt. 1, p. 636 (in part). 1864. Sibbaldus laticeps Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1864, p. 223. °1864. Sibbaldius laticeps Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1864, p. 393. 1864. Physalus laticeps Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1864, p. 395. 1868. Rudolphius laticeps Gray, Synopsis of Species of Whales and Dolphins British Museum, p. 3; Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales British Museum, 1871, p. 54. History and Nomenclature. The first accurate account of this little-known whale was published in 1822 by Rudolphi who, however, supposed it to be the same species as Balaenoptera acuto-rostrata. His illustrated paper gives details of the structure, under the name Balaena rostrata, of an individual taken in 1819 in the North Sea, and preserved in the Berlin Museum. Six years later, Lesson (1828) in his supplement to Buffon’s works on natural history bestowed on it the name Balaenoptera borealis which it still retains, basing his account primarily on Cuvier’s description (copied from Rudolphi) of the North Sea skull and partly on some notes supplied him by a French officer of the Health Department, concerning a specimen stranded on the Isle of Oleron, west coast of France. In 1846, J. E. Gray in his classic review of the whales (in the Zoology of the Voyage of the Erebus and Terror) recognized that Rudolphi’s monograph was concerned with another species than that to which the name rostrata rightly applied, and he therefore renamed it Ba- laenoptera laticeps, ignoring Lesson’s previous application of the name borealis. In 1864, he placed the species in his genus Sibbaldus which he erected to include this whale and the Sul- phurbottom (to which he as well as several other naturalists wrongly applied the specific name borealis). Flower uses this name emended to Sibbaldius laticeps, but in the same paper (per- haps through inadvertence) uses also Physalus laticeps, and calls attention to the fact that laticeps is somewhat of a misnomer. Four years later, in 1868, Gray proposed for it a separate RUDOLPHI'S RORQUAL. 935 genus, using the name Rudolphius which in a subgeneric sense he had given it in 1866. Sub- sequent investigation fails to uphold Gray’s views on the distinction of cetacean genera, and it is now universally accepted as a species of the genus Balaenoptera. Since the description by Rudolphi of a skeleton in the Berlin Museum formed the basis of Lesson’s name borealis, (though he refers only to Cuvier’s figure and description in the Ossemens Fossiles, taken from Rudolphi’s account), this specimen becomes the type. It was found east ashore on the German coast of the North Sea at Grémitz in the province of Holstein, in 1819. Vernacular Names. In recognition of his having first made this whale known to science, it is called Rudolphi’s Whale or Rudolphi’s Rorqual, but this is a book name, as also the name Lesser Rorqual or Lesser Fin Whale, in reference to its smaller size in comparison with the Common Finback which it somewhat resembles. On the Norwegian coast it goes by the name of Sejhval (or Seihval) among the fishermen, that is, Pollack Whale, or Coal-fish Whale since it appears in those waters at about the same time as the Pollack or ‘Coal-fish’ though it is not known to eat that fish. Though the term Pollack Whale is sometimes used as the English equivalent of the Norwegian word, it has been anglicized into ‘Sei Whale’ among whalemen of the New- foundland coasts, and by the Germans has become Seiwal. The French speak of it as the “Rorqual du Nord.” The term Black Whale is sometimes applied to this species but belongs more properly to the North Atlantic Right Whale. Illustrations. Excellent figures of the exterior of this whale are given by Collett in his monograph of 1886 (Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1886, plates 25, 26). Two of these figures show variations in the amount of white on the belly, which is more restricted than fa the Fin- back Whale. More recently, Andrews (1916) has published an extensive monograph summa- rizing and amplifying our knowledge of this whale. His excellent photographs, as well as a general figure to scale by Mr. J. H. Blake (Plate 40), very thoroughly illustrate the species. Description. Form.— The body is less slender than in the Common Finback. The pectoral limbs are said to be relatively smaller than in the other species, and the dorsal fin large and faleate, is situated anterior to the commencement of the last third of the length. Plicae.— Collett gives the number as from 30 to 44 with some 8 to 10 shorter folds at the sides, a total of ‘‘38 to 58,” and so considerably fewer than in the Common Finback. Color.— The dorsal surfaces are described as bluish black or occasionally somewhat brown; 236 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. not so blue, however, as in the Sulphurbottom. Millais, with the advantage of an artist’s training, says its color in life is ‘‘dark sepia suffused with gray.’’ Laterally the color pales and becomes a dark steel gray along the sides of the body. A sharply defined white area begins at the chin and extends along the middle of the belly to the genital region. On the breast the white area is narrowed and sometimes quite cut across by encroachment of the color of the sides. Behind the vent the body is bluish gray including the whole underside of the flukes. The pectoral limbs are colored above like the back, but on their inferior surfaces they are a trifle paler, with sometimes large whitish spots, though ‘‘never....absolutely white.’”’ The white of the belly is often asymmetrical in disposition. Collett describes numerous oval blotches of a whitish color, appearing on the dark parts of the body, but Andrews (1916) shows that these are marks due to parasites (see Japha, 1905). A careful comparison is much to be desired between the coloration of this whale and that of the Finback. To judge from descriptions Rudolphi’s Rorqual has the white of the ventral surfaces more restricted. Andrews (1916) in his monograph just issued has very fully de- scribed color variation in Pacific specimens. Hair.— In a foetus of this whale, Collett found two rows of seven hairs each, one on each side of the rostrum. On the lower jaw were seventeen hairs on each side in three longitudinal rows, consisting of three each in the upper and the lower rows, and eleven in the central row, a total of 48 hairs. In an adult female, however, only two hairs were found on each side of the upper jaw and on each lower jaw a row of eleven. According to Braun (1904) there are about fifty hairs. Japha (1911) has investigated the microscopic structure of these, and found that those on the chin were noticeably different from the others. Their bulb is not set so deeply in the skin, and the nerve supply is richer, suggesting a tactéle function. Baleen.— The baleen or ‘whalebone’ of this species is highly characteristic in appearance. Its color is black, but the fringing bristles of the inner edge are whitish, and of a fine and fibrous texture, almost like wool in comparison with the coarser whitish bristles of the Common Fin- back. They form a very densely matted mass. In occasional individuals some of the anterior plates may be wholly or partly white, and this condition may be nearly the same on both sides. The number of plates, counting them from the exterior, is given by Collett as from 318 to 339. In texture the baleen is said to be of finer quality than in any of the other Balaenopterae, and is hence more valuable commercially. The longest plates occur at about the beginning of the final third of the series, and may reach a length of 640 mm. (about 25 inches). External Measurements.— No detailed measurements of New England or of Western Atlantic specimens are available. Collett says that the largest one measured by him in Fin- mark was 16.3 meters or 53.5 feet long, a male. The largest female he saw was but 14.7 meters or 48.2 feet. Specimens as small as 10.1 meters (33.1 feet) were noted, but these may not have been adult. The largest recorded Atlantic specimen was 57 feet long (Haldane). It is evident s RUDOLPHI’S RORQUAL. 237 then that it is a smaller whale than the Common Finback, though not so small as the Little Piked Whale. Skeleton.— According to Flower, Gray was mistaken in supposing that the skull was pro- portionally very broad. Its form is in general like that of the other members of the genus. The nasal bones are almost straight across at their anterior ends, slightly longer at the middle, and raised along the midline to a low ridge. The coronoid processes of the lower jaw are short and obtusely triangular. The length of the skull of a 30-foot specimen was 6 feet 7 inches (2.00 meters). The neck vertebrae are seven as usual, and in the skeleton at Leyden the five posterior ones have the vertebrarterial canal incomplete where the lateral processes fail to unite at their tips. In the Brussels skeleton, however, they are joined in the first, second, and third vertebrae. The processes are of about equal length throughout except that in the sixth vertebra the lower one is shorter than the upper. In this skeleton thirteen pairs of ribs are present but according to Flower, a fourteenth pair of floating ribs has probably become lost. The first rib in this speci- men had a bifid head, and articulated with the seventh cervical as well as with the first dorsal. All the ribs had tubercular articulations, and the second, third, and fourth had in addition slen- der capitular processes or heads which, however, did not articulate with the vertebral bodies. The sternum was lozenge-shaped, 8 inches broad, and 4 inches in its lengthwise dimension. Andrews (1916) summarizes and corrects previous observations as to the number of bones in the vertebral column. The normal formula he gives as 7 cervicals, 14 dorsals, 13 lumbars, and 22 or 23 caudals, total 56 or 57. The skeleton of the hand has lately been investigated and figured by Kunze (1912). As usual, there are two series of bones in the carpus: a proximal row consisting of ulnare, radiale, and intermedium, and a distal row of two carpalia. The pisiform is also present at the external side of the carpus. Kunze’s figure (1912, p. 619) is apparently the first hitherto published showing the carpus of this whale, though it does not differ essentially from that of the Common Finback. The number of phalanges in the four digits is respectively 4, 6 or 7, 6 or 5, and 4, beginning with the exterior digit. In foetuses, there seems to be indication of an eighth phalanx in the longest digit (II). The pelvic bones have been described and figured by Struthers (1893, p. 323, pl. 20, fig. 7) from an immature individual taken at Orkney. These have a less pronounced pubic process (if so it may be interpreted) than do those of the Common Finback. The total length of each bone was about 7 inches of which the terminal cartilages composed 1.5 inches. The right bone was broader than the left, and possessed a marked oval area corresponding to the place where the acetabular cartilage lies in the Finback, about one-half inch long by one-third inch wide. A notch is present on the external border, just anterior to the pubic process, corre- sponding perhaps to the foramen sometimes seen in the pelvic bone of the Finback. Struthers discovered no trace of a femur in his specimen, 238 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. The following measurements of the skull are taken from Flower’s (1864) description of a specimen at Utrecht, Holland. Measurements of the Skull of Rudolphi’s Whale. (Specimen at Utrecht, Holland). Percent of Length Ft In Meters of Skull Length of skull in a straight line 9 10 2.99 100 Breadth of condyles iL <3} 0.38 12.7 f “ exoccipitals 3 0 0.91 30.5 Greatest (squamosal) breadth of skull ay 1.52 50.8 Length of supraoccipital 2s 0.68 22.8 Length of articular process of squamosal 2 ee 0.71 2350 Length of orbital process of frontal 7h) 0.49 16.5 Breadth “ is ‘ . © Sat base 10 0.58 18.6 Length of beak, from curved border of maxillary 6 1 1.85 61.8 Length of maxillary ne 2.18 72.8 Breadth of maxillaries at hinder end it 3} 0.38 127, Breadth of beak at middle, across the curve 258 0.81 Bf. Al « “ maxillary at middle 11 0.27 9.3 - “ premaxillary at middle 4 0.10 3.3 a “ beak 3 of its length from base i iO 0.55 18.6 Length of lower jaw in a straight line 4 2.84 94.9 The general anatomy of the soft parts in this species probably differs in no important details from that of other members of the genus. The hand muscles are quite similar to those of the Common Finback, and are figured by Kunze. For a careful and detailed account of the anatomy of a foetus of this whale, see Schulte (1916). Range. In the North Atlantic this species seems to be commonest in the waters of northern Europe. At the whaling stations on the coasts of Ireland, Finmark, and Iceland it is fre- quently captured. Occasional specimens have been stranded on the English and French coasts, but it is rare south of the Straits of Gibraltar. Racovitza believed that he observed this or a similar species in the Southern Qgean, and its presence has been ascertained about the Falklands. No doubt it occurs in Greenland waters but data are lacking. Captain Nilson informed Millais (1906) that it was at times common on the eastern Labrador coast. Until very recently, no representative of the species was known in the Pacific Ocean, but Andrews has lately found that at the whaling stations in Japanese waters a similar whale RUDOLPHI’S RORQUAL. 239 is captured, which therefore represents borealis in the North Pacific, and is considered by him (1916) to be specifically the same. Occurrence in the Western Atlantic.— Although DeKay (1842, p. 131) as long ago as 1842, recorded a whale that stranded in the Delaware River, N. Y., as ‘‘ Rorqualus borealis,” he him- self never saw the specimen and for his identification relied solely on information supplied him by Dr. Mitchill. The whale was described as 38 feet long, with whalebone from one to two feet long and “‘of a grey hairy appearance.” De Kay adds that it had no dorsal elevation, which led Dr. Mitchill to suppose that it was ‘‘ B. boops.’”’ Probably the specimen was a Hump- back, and De Kay’s description of ‘‘ Rorqualus borealis’? would further indicate that this was the case, since he mentions the ‘“‘long slender” pectoral limbs and “small triangular” dorsal fin. It is probably safe to discard the record as far as it concerns the present species. The first known instance of the presence of Rudolphi’s Rorqual in the western North Atlantic was published by True (1903a), on “reliable information” of four specimens taken in Placentia Bay, on the southeast coast of Newfoundland and brought to the whaling station at Rose-au-rue during the summer of 1902. None was taken by other whaling stations on the east and south coasts. In 1903, when I visited the Rose-au-rue station, one Pollack Whale had been caught that year, about the first of September, and others were reported seen. I examined the characteristic baleen of this specimen lying with other masses of whalebone just as taken from the mouth. In 1904, more stations were established on the Newfoundland coast and according to Millais, 39 Rudolphi’s Rorquals were killed out of a total of 1275 whales taken at fourteen factories, that year. Since then Andrews (1916) reports two taken in each of the years 1905, 1906, 1909, and 1912. Occurrence in New England. The paucity of records for the Pollack Whale on the North American coast, as just indi- cated, makes the establishment of its place as a member of the New England fauna of especial interest. It is with much satisfaction therefore that I record it from Chatham, Mass., thus at once making its first record for New England as well as for the United States, and its most southerly locality yet known on this side of the North Atlantic. The specimen in question came ashore on the outer beach directly in front of the Old Harbor Life Saving Station, at Chatham, in August, 1910. It was visited by a number of people, including Mr. John Mur- doch, to whom I am indebted for information concerning it and for a piece of its characteristic baleen. The life-savers had preserved some of the baleen plates, which with a jaw and two ribs, were given me in October, 1910, by Mr. H. E. Eldridge, Keeper of the Station and are now in the Society’s possession. The remainder of the carcass had since washed away. It was reported to me as about forty feet long, and was supposed by the fishermen with 240 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. whom I conversed, to have been one of a school of ‘‘Finbacks” that had been seen offshore for several days together, in August. These they thought were ‘‘mostly small whales.’’ At about the same time another specimen was said to have come ashore near the Chatham Life Saving Station, but this I was unable to confirm. Specimens of the whalebone are preserved in the Museum of the Society and in the Museum of Comparative Zodlogy, and I am indebted to Mr. J. Henry Blake for a photograph of the whale at the Old Harbor Station. This picture (Plate 13, fig. 1), taken by a casual visitor, is here reproduced. Though taken ‘head on,’ it indicates the relatively short body as compared with a Common Finback, and shows the high dorsal fin and pointed tapering snout. The fact that a school of ‘‘small’”’ Finback Whales had been seen offshore previous to the stranding of the one (or possibly two) individuals, coupled with the known gregarious habits of this species, raise a presumption that there may have been a small school of Pollack Whales off the Cape Cod shores in August, 1910. It is also evident that schools of Finbacks reported from time to time on the coast may contain individuals of the present species, which, however, would be difficult of identification at sea. Habits. Previous to the last few years our knowledge of the habits of this whale was chiefly con- fined to the paper by Collett in 1886. Collett was told by the whalers that when not feeding, the Pollack Whales swim swiftly and do not appear to blow so often as the larger species, but spout only once or twice when coming to the surface. When feeding in the plankton currents they swim slowly with the upper part of the head and back fin out of water. Recent observations on the Irish coast (Lillie, 1910) indicate the presence there of this whale in late May and early June, after which none was taken by the whalers. In Finmark, however, they were found as early as May 14 and as late as September 8, though in a course of years the time varied more or less. Usually they did not appear in the Finmark waters till middle or late June, and were most common in the months of July and August. Statistics of the Fin- mark whaling stations, as compiled by Rawitz (1900, p. 104) show that B. borealis is the com- monest of all the whales taken on that coast, which may be due in part as that author supposes, to the fact that it frequents coastal waters rather than the high seas, and often approaches very close to the land. Rawitz believes that it does not appear in the more northern waters until they have attained a summer temperature of 9° C., but it may be that it is the effect of temperature on the food of the whale that regulates its appearance, and that the migratory movements which seem to be indicated are wanderings northward in pursuit of food. Millais credits it with an ability to swim as fast as twenty-five knots an hour, but this must be received with caution. It seems to be somewhat gregarious, and usually goes in schools RUDOLPHI’S RORQUAL. 241 up to as many as fifty individuals. Their association, however, is somewhat irregular and not as with fish that go in compact masses. Probably it is partly the presence of plankton in favorable currents that brings them into association. At the Finmark stations, Collett observed large foetuses in whales of this species taken during the summer. Although there was much variation in the size of foetuses taken at approxi- mately the same dates, none the less it seemed to be generally true that those of spring or early summer were smaller than those found later in the season. Thus in July most of those seen were from three to four feet long, while in August some were seen up to eight, ten, or twelve feet in length. This indicates a rapid growth, and leads to the supposition that copulation takes place in winter and that the young are born in the fall or winter following. As in whales generally, a single young one is normally produced at a birth. Collett records one instance, however, in which two young, each six feet seven inches long, were taken from a female 43 feet long on the Finmark coast at Varangerfjord, July 27th. Food. The Pollack Whale is believed to be almost altogether a plankton feeder, and so far as known subsists chiefly on the minute copepod Calanus finmarchicus and the schizopod Thy- sanoéssa inermis. The former is probably taken largely at the surface, where it often appears in such dense masses as to redden the sea, yet it is but four or five millimeters in length. It is suggested by Collett that the very fine wool-like bristles of the whalebone in this whale are an adaptation for sieving out this minute prey. The schizopod is perhaps taken at greater depths or on the surface at night, since it is sensitive to bright light and is less commonly near the surface by day. Andrews (1916) has lately published his observations on this species in Japanese waters, where he found that small fish were sometimes taken. Commercial Value. The yield of oil in this whale is comparatively small, averaging, according to Collett, 17 to 23 hectoliters or 14 to 20 barrels, but may be as much as 25 or 30 barrels from large fat in- dividuals. In 1886 this oil was valued at from $135 to $165 per whale. It is of good quality and contains less stearine than that of the other species of Balaenoptera. The baleen, though short, is considered the best of that produced by any of the Rorquals on account of its finer grain. In Finmark the flesh of this species is canned for human consumption. It is con- sidered to be superior to that of the other species taken, and alone is preserved. Guldberg (1885) describes it as in color about the same as beef, whereas that of the other Balaenopteridae is much darker. 242 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. Enemies and Parasites. Nothing is known of the enemies of this species or of the natural causes that act to keep its numbers in check. No doubt the Killer Whale occasionally troubles it, but no record is known to me that would prove this. Sundry parasitic crustaceans and worms are known from this whale, but it does not sup- port barnacles. Collett reports what were probably Penellae attached to the edges of both flukes, but he did not personally examine them. These parasites Andrews (1916) has now shown to be the cause of the oval whitish marks described on the body of this whale. The cope- pod Balaenophilus wnisetus was first found in this whale by Collett. It infests the whalebone plates to which both the larvae and adults cling in thousands. Figures are given of both stages in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1886, p. 257. Morch (1911, p. 668) writes of a Rudolphi’s Rorqual killed in 1906 at the Shetlands, which had the front end of its lower jaw deformed, and so afforded a foothold for a colony of the stalked barnacle, Conchoderma auritum. This is exceptional, however, for under normal con- ditions this whale does not harbor barnacles. Of internal parasites, Collett found two sorts of intestinal worms, one of which appears to be identical with Echinorhynchus porrigens, and has also been recorded by Borgstrém from this whale. The other Collett describes as a new species, H. ruber, but it has been shown that it is the same as EH. turbinella Diesing. This latter varies in size according to the degree of maturity up to about 25 mm. in length, is transparent when young but bright red when full grown. £. porrigens is also orange red in color. These parasites attach themselves by a head, thickly studded with spines, to the inner wall of the small intestine, and absorb their nourish- ment from the digesting food. They pass only a part of their life as parasites of the whale, for the first stage is lived probably within some crustacean on which the whale feeds. Figures of these two Echinorhynchi are given by Borgstrém (1892). Two species of tape worm are known to occur in the intestinal canal of Rudolphi’s Whale. Both were described by Lénnberg (1892) from specimens collected at a whaling station in Finmark. The first, Bothriocephalus balaenopterae, is made the type of a new subgenus Dip- logonoporus. Its scolex or sucking disk by which it attaches itself to the intestinal wall, is flattened from side to side, with a sucker, shaped in outline like a tennis racquet. The second species, T'etrabothrium affine, has a curiously four-parted scolex of four round petal-like disks. It is allied to a species found in the large shark, Lamna. PLATE 12. | Blue Whale or Sulphurbottom (Balaenoplera musculus). Drawn by J. Henry Blake after measurements by True (1904) of a Newfoundland specimen. af ij tail te ‘on ium hy NA ( Longaeaal 9 7 ») ; iy “ATIVHM 3N1G "Gb ALY 1d ‘% ‘ON ‘8 10A ‘LSIH “LVN ‘00S NOLSOG SYHIONAW : BLUE WHALE. 243 Balaenoptera musculus (Linn). BLUE WHALE; SULPHURBOTTOM WHALE. Prane lie ric. 3; Puan 12. Prarn 13; mG. 3: SYNONYMY. 1758. Balaena musculus Linné, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, vol. 1, p. 76. 1803-4. Balaenoptera jubartes Lacépéde, Hist. Nat. des Cétacés, vol. 1, p. 176, pl. 4, fig. 1. 1820. Balaenoptera gibbar Scoresby, Arctic Regions, vol. 1, p. 478 (not of Lacépéde). 1828. Balaena maximus borealis Knox, Cat. Prep. Whale, p. 5. 1828. Balaenoptera musculus Fleming, Hist. British Animals, p. 30; True, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1898, vol. 21, p. 632. 1829. Balaena borealis Fischer, Synopsis Mamm., p. 524 (in part; from Dubar). 1832. Balaenoptera rorqual Dewhurst, Loudon’s Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. 5, p. 214 (in part, includes Dubar). 1836. Rorqualus boops Cuvier, Hist. Nat. des Cétacés, p. 321 (in part). 1837. Rorqualis borealis Jardine, Naturalist’s Library, Mammalia, vol. 6, p. 125 (in part). 1847. Physalus (Rorqualus) sibbaldii Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 92. 1857. Balaenoptera gigas Reinhardt, in Rink’s Grénland Geographisk, og Statistisk Beskrevet, Bidrag, vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 10. 1861. Pterobalaena gigas van Beneden, Mém. Acad. Roy. Sci. Belg., Bruxelles, vol. 32, art. 3, p. 37. 1863. Pterobalaena gryphus Munter, Mitth. Naturw. Verein von Neu-Vorpommern und Riigen, vol. 9, p. 1- 107. 1864. Sibbaldus borealis Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 223. 1864. Physalus latirostris Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 419. 1866. Sibbaldius borealis Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales British Museum, ed. 2, p. 175. 1866. Cuvierius latirostris Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales British Museum, ed. 2, p. 165. 1866. Cuvierius sibbaldii Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales British Museum, ed. 2, p. 380. 1866. Balaenoptera carolinae Malm, Nagra blad om hyaldjur i allmaenhet og Balaenoptera carolinae i syn- nerhet, Goeteborg. 1867. Flowerius gigas Lilljeborg, Nova Acta Reg. Soc. Sci. Upsala, ser. 3, vol. 6, art. 6, p. 12. 1871. Cuviertus carolinae Malm, Kongl. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handl., vol. 9, art. 2, p. 42. 1875. Balaenoptera sibbaldii G. O. Sars, Forhandl. Vidensk. Selsk. Christiania, 1874, p. 227. 4 History and Nomenclature. Although the specific name musculus has long been almost universally applied to the Com- mon Finback, True (1898) has now conclusively shown that Linné’s Balaena musculus was based on the description by Sibbald, of a specimen of the Blue Whale cast ashore in the Firth of Forth, Scotland, in September, 1692. This discovery necessitates an unfortunate inter- change of names, but Sibbald’s description is unmistakable, and constitutes the first attempt to bring the species before the attention of naturalists. In recognition of this, Gray in 1847, proposed that the species be called Physalus sibbaldii and later placed it in a separate genus 244 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. Sibbaldus (changed shortly after to Sibbaldius by Flower), with the specific name borealis of Knox (1828). This latter was unfortunately preoccupied by Lesson’s borealis for the Pollack Whale. Curiously, in his Catalogue of Seals and Whales, published in 1866, Gray applies no less than three different names to the Blue Whale, but the supposed differences were not of the importance he assigned them. Thus his Physalus sibbaldii was based largely on a skeleton preserved at Hull, and his Sibbaldius borealis was founded in part on Dubar’s (1828) description of a specimen cast ashore at Ostend. In the same work he erects the genus Cuvierius to include the single species (Physalus) latirostris of Flower (1864) but in the Additions and Corrections, states that this is the same as Physalus sibbaldii and that the name should stand as Cuvierius sibbaldit. To the same genus was referred the subfossil Balaenoptera carolinae of Malm, now synonymized with the Blue Whale. Lacépéde, in 1803-4, revised the classification of these whales, and introduced sundry new names into the nomenclature. He founded the genus Balaenoptera, to embrace the Finner Whales, and included the Blue Whale under the specific name jubartes, though his description probably applies in part to at least two other species, the Common Finback and the Humpback. No doubt it is in a measure due to this confusion, that later authors found some difficulty in applying his names. Thus Scoresby (1820) de- scribes a Blue Whale under the title Balaenoptera gibbar, and Dewhurst (1832) includes Dubar’s Ostend Sulphurbottom under Balaenoptera rorqual, names which are primarily synonyms of the Common Finback. The British naturalist Fleming was the first to call it Balaenoptera musculus, its correct name. Later authors placed it successively in the genera Rorqualus, Physalus, Pterobalaena, Sibbaldius, Cuvierius, Flowerius, but it is now recognized that the differences on which these supposed genera were based, are chiefly small matters of individual variation. Eschricht in his important memoir of 1849, proposed the name Pterobalaena in a group sense, to include the species now referred to Balaenoptera. This was later used as a generic term by Van Beneden, who in 1861 adopted the combination Plerobalaena gigas. The specific name gigas had been proposed four years earlier by Reinhardt in spite of the fact of prior names. The labors of J. E. Gray, as already pointed out, hardly settled the matter, and most later writers have followed G. O. Sars (1875) in calling the Blue Whale Balaenoptera sibbaldii. Finally, True in 1898 restudied the Linnaean references, and conclusively showed that Linné’s Balaena musculus, which had long been in use for the Common Finback, applied after all to the Blue Whale. The type locality of this species is, as given by Linné, ‘‘in mari Scotico.’ just mentioned, was based on Sibbald’s description of a specimen from the Firth of Forth, Scotland. > The name, as Pe BLUE WHALE. 245 Vernacular Names. This, the largest of living mammals, is often spoken of as Sibbald’s Whale or Sibbald’s Rorqual after the Scotch naturalist of that name who first brought it to the notice of scientists in his work on whales of the Scottish coasts, published in 1692. From its size and habitat, it is also called the Great Northern Rorqual, but more commonly Sulphurbottom Whale, or Sulphurbottom (shortened by the Newfoundland whalers to ‘Sulphur’), notwithstanding that the latter term is a gross misnomer. How this name arose is not altogether clear, though Scammon, in writing of the representative of this whale in the Pacific Ocean, supposes it is descriptive of ‘‘a yellowish cast or sulphur color,” which he says, is in some instances to be noted on the under surfaces. It seems better to use the more descriptive epithet of Blue Whale, which indicates the slaty-gray of its color. This is merely following Norwegian usage, how- ever, since Blue Whale is but a translation of ‘Blaahval,’ first applied to it by the Norwegian whaler, Capt. Svend Foyn, and formally adopted by Sars (1875). It has brevity to recommend it as well. The German word is ‘Blauwal,’ after the Norwegian. In Icelandic it is called ‘Steypiredyr,’ meaning a great whale. Description. Form.— Compared with the Common Finback, the Blue Whale is longer of body but the head is differently shaped, with a broader muzzle, the sides of which are bowed outward instead of being nearly straight. A prominent ridge runs forward from the blowholes on the center of the snout. The pectoral fin is slightly longer in proportion and its outline charac- teristically different. Its outer margin is more convex, and its inner margin a long sigmoid curve, with more of a concavity near the tip. Frequently the tip is serrated as if the ends of the four fingers projected slightly at the margin of the paddle. This was seen in several cases at Newfoundland by True and by myself (see text-figs. 8,9). Sars also mentions it. Sometimes this appearance may be present on but one side only. True believed that this irregular margin of the end of the pectorals was ‘“‘due in most cases to external injury.’’ Certainly, however, it may be a perfectly normal occurrence, since a foetus from Newfoundland which I dissected, had a small notch at the tip of each pectoral, forming an emargination between the two longest digits (II and IV), as shown in outline in text-fig. 8. The adipose fin at the lower part of the back is generally much smaller in proportion, than in the other Balaenopterae, nearly an equal-sided triangle in outline with a concave hinder margin. As in the Common Finback, the eye is behind and a little above the angle of the mouth. The eyeball itself in a 71-foot animal was 5 inches in antero-posterior length and 4.5 inches in 246 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. vertical height according to True (1904, p. 175). The iris was brown and the pupil ‘oblong with a straight superior margin.” The mammae are two in number as in other whales, concealed each in a longitudinal slit oO Trxt-ries. 8, 9— Outlines of pectoral limbs of Blue Whales (Balaenoptera musculus) showing emarginations between the fingers. 8.— From a foetal specimen (original). 9.— From a photograph of an adult at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland (original). opposite the vaginal opening. Rudimentary mammae are present in the male. The penis is retractile within the body, some six feet in length. Plicae.— The plicae or ridges and furrows of the ventral side, extend from the lower margin of the lips to the navel as in the Common Finback. Side branches come off irregularly, uniting adjacent ridges, and towards the posterior part of the thorax they run together, so that the number is much reduced there as compared with that on a line between the forelimbs. True found a variation of from 58 to 88 ridges between the roots of the pectorals in Newfound- land specimens, and this is apparently not correlated with size or sex. Color.— The general coloration is a slaty-gray, with a decidedly bluish cast, darker on the head, lips, and throat, paler along the sides. The shoulders, back, and sides are irregularly mottled with small grayish patches. Millais describes a freshly killed specimen as “‘pale blue gray.” The belly, including the area of the throat folds and thence posteriorly to the navel, has small scattered white marks of irregular shape, some larger, some smaller, but rather sharply outlined. These are usually most abundant at the lower part of the throat. In some speci- mens the white flecks extend forward even to the lips, but usually there are but few in front of the pectoral fins. True observed a few cases in which they were so numerous under the root of the pectoral as to form a large white band extending backward toward the navel; in others they are confined to the posterior portion of the ventral folds, in the middle. There is great individual variation in these details. The dorsal fin is likewise more or less marked with ———— ES BLUE WHALE. 247 whitish over its central part. “‘ The pectorals are gray above and more or less distinctly mottled like the back. The under surface, anterior margin, and tip above and below are white” (True, 1904). The extent of the white tip on the outer surface may be as great as two feet. The flukes underneath are usually colored like the back, with, however, more or less of greyish streaks at the base, running posteriorly. In some individuals the flukes are nearly white below, with the usual streaks of light gray. The inside of the mouth is black, the tongue slate gray. In life, the appearance of the back as it comes above water, is mouse color or elephant gray. After death, as in all whales, and with exposure to air, the colors of the body rapidly darken and eventually become quite black, so that unless freshly killed specimens are examined, it is difficult or impossible to judge of the true color of the animal. Hair.— As in other whales of this genus, hairs are present on the head only, and their number and arrangement are of a very definite nature. In a foetal Blue Whale from New- foundland, 630 mm. long, I found on each side of the snout two distinct longitudinal rows running parallel to the edge of the upper lip. The inner row consists of nine single bristles, 10 11 Trxt-ric. 10.— Head of North Atlantic Right Whale (2ubalaena glacialis) from above, to show narrow rostrum and divergent blowholes (from a photograph of the Provincetown 1909 specimen). Text-ric. 11— Head of a foetal Blue Whale (Balaenoplera musculus) to show broad rostrum, slightly divergent blowholes, and the arrangement of the hairs (original). rather evenly spaced, the hindermost of which is just back of a line drawn across the posterior ends of the blowholes. The entire row forms a convex line that ends at the commencement of the terminal fourth of the upper jaw. The outer row contains but eight bristles, the two 248 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. posteriormost of which are close together, the three or four succeeding ones more widely spaced. The two hindermost bristles are much nearer the edge of the lip than the others, so that the row curves downward here, toward the corner of the mouth. Directly above these two bristles, and standing between the inner and the outer row is a single bristle (see diagram, text-fig. 11). On the upper surface of the snout there are thus eighteen hairs on each side. On the lower jaw there are again two rows of hairs on each side, but very differently placed. At the tip of the jaw are two vertical rows of nine bristles each, very close together in the foetus, but three inches apart in an adult and extending the height of the lip. The rows diverge somewhat dorsally but are parallel for the lower three-fifths. The second row is on the side of the lip, and consists of seven hairs, somewhat regularly spaced. The first hair of this row is back from the tip of the jaw at about the beginning of the second quarter of its length. In- stead of running parallel to the convex upper margin of the lip, this row of hairs forms a chord of the are, on the line with the rami of the jaws. The Blue Whale has thus in all 68 of these large hairs, each of which comes from a promi- nent raised follicle. They correspond more or less in position to the vibrissae or ‘whiskers’ of other mammals, and probably have a tactile function. In adult whales these hairs are sometimes absent, or at all events not easy to find. Possibly they become worn down or may fall out with age. It will be seen that the arrangement of the hairs is similar to that in the Finback, but the Blue Whale has a slightly greater number. In addition to these prominent vibrissal hairs, there are a number of small hairs at the point of the lower jaw, yellowish in color, and in a specimen I examined at Newfoundland, about fifty in number. Baleen.— The whalebone plates are larger and coarser than in any of the other Balaenop- terae. The longest measure from 23 to 32 inches in animals of about seventy feet or over (True), but the latter dimension is unusual. The bristles that fray out from the inner margin of the plates are very coarse and stiff, and like the blade itself are wholly coal black. The combination of black baleen including the bristles is characteristic of this species of Balaenop- tera. The only other species of the genus having black whalebone is B. borealis, but in this the bristles are very fine and white. Weight.— No attempt to measure accurately the weight of a Blue Whale seems ever to have been made. An approximation, however, has been attempted by Guldberg (1907) for this species, using the same method described under the Common Finback. By considering the body of the whale to resemble in shape a solid composed of two cones, a longer and a shorter of equal basal area, it is possible by a mathematical formula to calculate the volume of this solid, and thus, by assuming a specific gravity equal to that of water, to obtain the weight of such a body. To make this calculation, two measurements are needed: the total length in ————— BLUE WHALE. 249 a straight line and the girth. These dimensions for twenty-one Blue Whales were obtained by Captain Berg, at an Icelandic whaling station and were used by Guldberg in his calculations. Of these twenty-one whales, the extremes of length were 61.5 and 84 feet, and the extremes of greatest girth 32 to 40; the averages of these dimensions were respectively 72.45 feet and 36.02. By applying these figures in the formula the weight of a 72-foot Blue Whale is found to approximate 73.8 tons or 73,800 kilograms. ‘This, it must be remembered, is an approxi- mation only, as no account is taken of the large pectoral limbs or of the flukes. Moreover the form of the body before and behind the point of greatest girth is not exactly that of a cone. Turner has independently estimated the weight of a Blue Whale at about seventy tons. = Greatest fore-and-att thickness)... ents aera eee ye AS Diametersiot the vembrall pit aboute sje ee eee eee Oo Omens Transverse width of the dorsal groove...............---++-- 64.5 ~~“ The third vertebra (M. C. Z. 3742; Plate 15, figs. 3, 5, 8) must have come from near the end of the series, and is much more flattened, so that the outline is rectangular with rounded cor- FOSSIL FINBACK OF GAY HEAD. 287 ners. The posterior epiphysis is lost. There is no ventral pit to be seen, but the upper groove is sumilar to that in the vertebra just described. The bone measures: — Wigniatenll @biiaeGirs, . Gt ho.alt RAM O GRO ae ee ee eee 76 mm. ADAG Ors CACIAING GOD M Erion: fone eV soir: oo citi cual Gis Suchen eee vce eae ssi = Greatest tore-and-att thickness... ....s...c00e.ce.ccceves seuss 48 “ MiransKersenwiGthon GorsaleTOOVe. «2. ss6. ges. ass os... eee: GS The Museum of Comparative Zoédlogy contains also a fragment of a cetacean rib which I would refer with little hesitation to the genus Balaenoptera, and to the same species repre- sented by the terminal bones of the spinal column. This fragment (no. 8744; Plate 15, fig. 9) is from near the upper part of the rib, where it curves to articulate with the transverse process of the vertebra. It is about 210 mm. long, and 80 mm. in diameter across its broader end. It is much flattened and has on one surface a broad shallow groove running along its length as in the living Balaenoptera. In the modern Right and Sperm Whales, the ribs are much more rounded and stouter, without this groove. In section, the fragment is triangular at the proximal end where the head of the rib begins to take shape; at the other end it is more nearly oval in section, 35 mm. in diameter transversely. Judging from the shape of the fragment, it must have come from one of the ribs near the hinder end of the series. Acknowledgments are due to the Museum of Comparative Zodlogy for the privilege of studying and recording these as well as other specimens of New England Cetacea in its collection. 288 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. Megaptera nodosa (BoNNATERRE). ATLANTIC HumMpBACK WHALE. Prats 11, Fie. 5° Prare 16 SYNONYMY. ieded 1777. Balaena gibbosa Erxleben, Syst. Animalium, p. 610 (in party. 1780. Balaena boops Fabricius, Fauna Groenlandica, p. 36; (also many later authors, but not of Linné, 1758, which is Balaenoptera physalus, young). 1789. Balaena nodosa Bonnaterre, Tabl. Encyclopéd. et Méthod. des trois Régnes de la Nature, Cétologie, p- 5; True, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1898, vol. 21, p. 635. 1832. Balaena longimana Rudolphi, Abhandl. K. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, p. 133-144, pl. 1-5. 1834. Physeter gibbosa Dewhurst, Nat. Hist. Cetacea, p. 168. 1837. Balaenoptera longimana Rapp, Die Cetaceen zoologisch-anat. dargestellt, p. 55. 1845. Balaenoptera (Boops) boops Brandt, in Tchihatcheff’s Voyage Sci. dans |’Altai Oriental, p. 438. 1846. Megaptera longimana Gray, Zool. Voyage Erebus and Terror, Mammalia, p. 17. 1846. Megapteron longimana Gray, Zool. Voyage Erebus and Terror, Mammalia, p. 51. 1846. Megaptera americana Gray, Zool. Voyage Erebus and Terror, Mammalia, p. 17. 1846. Megapteron americana Gray, Zool. Voyage Erebus and Terror, Mammalia, p. 52. 1861. Kyphobalaena longimana van Beneden, Mém. Acad. Roy. Belg., Bruxelles, vol. 32, art. 3, p. 38. 1862. Megaptera boops Lilljeborg, Upsala Universitets Arsskr., 1861-62, p. 88 (of separate). 1865. {Eschrichtius robustus Gray, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 3, vol. 15, p. 493; Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1865, p. 40 (not of Lilljeborg). 1865. Megapteron boops Gray, Synopsis Whales and Dolphins British Museum, pl. 30 (jaws of a foetus). 1865. M[egaptera| gigas Cope, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., p. 179 (errorim). 1865. Megaptera osphyia Cope, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., p. 180. 1866. Megaptera longimana var. 2. moorei Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales British Museum, ed. 2, p. 122. 1868. Kyphobalaena keporkak van Beneden, Bull. Acad. Roy. Belg., Bruxelles, ser. 2, vol. 25, p. 12, footnote; p. 109. 1868. Kyphobalacna asphyia (sic) van Beneden, Bull. Acad. Roy. Belg., Bruxelles, ser. 2, vol. 25, p. 117. 1868. Kyphobalaena americana van Beneden, Bull. Acad. Roy. Belg., Bruxelles, ser. 2, vol. 25, p.122. 1871. Megaptera bellicosa Cope, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. 12, p. 107. 1898. Megaptera novae-angliae Trouessart, Cat. Mamm., fase. 5, p. 1085 (quoting Brisson and Gmelin where, however, the name is not used in a nomenclatorial sense.) History and Nomenclature. The Humpback Whale of the North Atlantic was well known to whalers for considerably more than a century before it was studied and named by zoologists. In the middle or latter part of the 17th century it was regularly hunted at the Bermudas, and later, in New England waters. Paul Dudley, in his famous essay of 1725, gave a brief description of it, as one of the five species of whales occurring on the New England coast. The earlier systematists included PLATE 16. | : j Humpback Whale (Megaptera nodosa). Drawn by Henry Blake from measurements. . ‘OF ALVId avis! > Aaa ad “ATIVHMA AOVEdWnHY % ON ‘8 ‘10A ‘LSIH “LYN “00S NOLSOG SHIOWA YW . } eye ' in yt ‘ 7 es 7 1 4 a (ire Aran ae, j 1 pe in 7 ert . a i) f ‘ “a a | ae a , ice? y ’ f ord - i ; $ ‘ , 5 ‘ { ‘ a ‘ . ‘ 7 . ' : . , . v a | . . « € ’ - we * ‘8 { * Pia) \ 2 \ ‘ }, Mi [ p yall 4 nei} 4 ‘ | HUMPBACK WHALE. 289 this New England whale in their lists of animals and it therefore forms the basis of their Latin names. Thus Erxleben in 1777, and following him, Gmelin (1788) and Kerr (1792) confuse it with the Secrag Whale of Dudley, and include both under the name Balaena gibbosa. But the Serag Whale was doubtless Hubalaena glacialis, and the name if considered recognizable, is a composite referring in part to both species. Although Fabricius, a Greenland missionary and author of the Fauna Groenlandica (1780), was well acquainted with the species as it occurred in the seas of southern Greenland, he considered it the same as Linné’s Balaena boops, and so refers to it in his work. As shown by True (1898, p. 624), however, this name was based on the young of the Common Finback. Nevertheless, this fact was not then appreciated, and the specific name boops has been much used for the Humpback by later writers. Under this name in 1818, Fabricius gives a very full account of the species as known to him. He also introduced the name Keporkak by which the Greenland natives knew it, and this was subse- quently used as a specific term for the species. Meanwhile, however, the Abbé Bonnaterre in his treatise on Cetacea, published in 1789, definitely adopted the name Balaena nodosa, basing his account on Dudley’s Humpback, and giving as the known range ‘‘ Nouvelle Angle- terre.” He cites other authors, who, as True points out, are likewise wholly indebted to the same source. The name is therefore the first post-Linnean designation that can be un- equivocally applied to a Humpback Whale, and since True has shown that there is no ground for distinguishing the whales of the two sides of the North Atlantic, it will stand as the tech- nical name of the North Atlantic Humpback. In 1832 the German naturalist Rudolphi de- seribed a specimen stranded at the mouth of the Elbe, and proposed for it the name Balaena longimana in reference to the very long pectorals. This and Fabricius’s contribution were the first accurate memoirs on the species, so that it is barely a century since it may be said to have been known to science. Although Brandt in 1845 made a subgenus Bodps for this whale (preoccupied by Bodps Cuvier for a genus of fishes), and placed it in Lacépéde’s genus Balaenoptera, it, was not until 1846 that the English naturalist J. E. Gray distinguished the Humpbacks as forming a distinct genus from the other whalebone whales, by reason of the peculiarities of the skull and shoulder blade, lack of a faleate dorsal fin, and particularly by the extraordinarily long pectorals. Hence the generic title Megaptera (#¢y¢, large, and rrépov, a wing or flipper); the specific name nodosa refers of course to the irregular knobs on the head and limbs. Eschricht, in 1849, proposed Kyphobalaena as a group name for the Humpbacks, but this is antedated by Gray’s generic name. Van Beneden, nevertheless, used Kyphobalaena in a generic sense for the Humpbacks in several of his papers on Cetacea, and is thus responsible for sundry combinations in which this name occurs. For Eschricht, although often quoted as author of the genus, nowhere uses it so. Rudolphi’s specific term longimana has long been current for the species; but Gray in 1846 gave the name americana to a supposed distinct Humpback from Bermuda. 290 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. Cope, in 1865, described the skeleton of a specimen found dead off Petit Manan Lighthouse, Maine, and believing it to be distinct, gave it the specific name osphyia. This skeleton is still preserved in the Niagara Museum. On similar grounds he named a West Indian specimen M. bellicosa but True (1904) has shown that all these names must be considered synonyms of nodosa. Gray’s ‘‘var. mooret”’ founded on a young skeleton in the Liverpool Museum must be added to these, as the characters claimed for it seem to be mere individual peculiarities. Other names, generic and specific, have been given the Humpbacks of the Pacific and the Southern Ocean, but the true status of these supposed forms is still uncertain and the names are not here considered. A fossil Humpback apparently identical with the living species has been reported from the Pleistocene deposits of eastern Canada. J. E. Gray also described in 1865 a single neck vertebra found in subfossil condition on the coast of Devonshire, England. He considered it to represent Lilljeborg’s tH schrichtius robustus — a subfossil Finback Whale from Sweden — but it was probably from a Humpback. The type locality of the North Atlantic Humpback is given by Bonnaterre as ‘‘ Nouvelle Angleterre” basing his original description on Dudley’s account of the New England Hump- back. Vernacular Names. Among the whalemen this is universally known as the Humpback to distinguish it from the ‘‘Whale” (which commonly meant the Right Whale on our coasts) and the Finbacks; hence the verb ““humpbacking” as applied to the local cruises in pursuit of the species from our ports. Other vernacular names are mere variants —thus Dudley speaks of it as the ‘Bunch, or Hump-back Whale,” Turton writes it ‘‘Hump Whale,” and Gray and Cope have rendered it ““Hunechbacked Whale.” In other tongues it is called Buckelwal or Pflockfisch in German, Stubhval in Danish, Baleine 4 bosse in French, Knoélhval by the Norwegians. All these names refer either to the large dermal tubercles (Knélen) or to the small adipose fin on the lower part of the back, which is spoken of by Dudley as ‘‘a Bunch standing in the Place where the Fin does in the Finback. This Bunch is as big as a Man’s Head, and a Foot High, shaped like a Plug pointing backwards.’ Bonnaterre’s term ‘‘Tampon” Whale like the German Pflockfish is merely a translation into French of this word ‘‘Plug.’’ Eschricht suggests that the name Humpback is derived from the rounded appearance of the animal as it dives. The native name Keporkak of the Greenlanders was first introduced into scientific literature by QO. Fabricius in 1780, and is found in works of later writers. HUMPBACK WHALE. 291 Description. Form.— The body is rather short and robust in comparison with the Fin Whales, and the peduncle too seems shorter in proportion. The throat folds, extending from the lower margin of the Jaws back to the region of the navel, are fewer and much farther apart than in the genus Balaenoptera. In three Newfoundland specimens, True found the number of these folds to be 14, 20, and 22 respectively between the pectoral fins, and the widest were from 5 to 8 inches. A fold or two is present at the corner of the mouth, passing to the pectoral, back of which may be two or three short transverse furrows. As in the Fin Whales, the folds on the throat anastomose in some degree. Thus a fold from the lip may unite with a second or it may itself bifureate, forming two; others run continuously from the lower margin of the ramus to the abdomen. The most median folds do not end at the point of the jaw but a slight distance back from it, forming there a slight eminence or “chin” (as Struthers puts it). A characteristic of the Humpback is a series of dermal tubercles on the rostrum and jaws (True’s plate, 1904, Plate 41, shows them well). There is much variation in the number of these, but on the snout they are arranged in three rows: a median row of usually about five to seven extending from the blowholes to the snout, and a lateral row of from eight to thirteen on each margin of the upper jaw, commencing slightly in advance of the angle of the mouth. On the lower jaw is a distinct group of tubercles on each side of the symphysis, and an irregular series of a dozen or more along the side of each mandible, often in a more or less double series. The blowholes are situated on a slight eminence at the vertex of the head. In shape they are a little convex toward each other and converge anteriorly. There is a median linear de- pression about an inch deep between them. In a specimen hauled ashore and resting on its belly, there is seen to be a distinct depres- sion at the neck. The pectoral fin is of extraordinary length and flexibility. It is longer than that of any other whale, from 30 to 36% of the total length. The anterior outline is gently convex, with a recurved tip; the posterior margin is similar, becoming concave at the tip. The anterior margin has a series of eight prominent knobs, corresponding to the carpal joint and the joints of the phalanges of the short first and long second bony fingers. The knobs corresponding to the base and the tip of the first finger of the skeleton are largest. Between them are two smaller knobs, and distal to the second big knob, are the four remaining. There are a few smaller protuberances at the tip on the posterior margin as well. The dorsal fin of the Humpback, though subject to considerable variation in shape and size, is in reality not very different in form from that of the Finbacks, though commonly rather less faleate, more ridge-like, and truncate posteriorly, not like a hump as might be thought. 292 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. An excellent photograph of two living Pacific Humpbacks in which the extremes of form in _ the dorsal fin are shown, is published by Andrews (1909, Plate 34, fig. 2). The flukes are rather broad, and set at an angle of nearly 45 degrees to the axis of the body. Posteriorly there is a deep median V-shaped notch as in the Fin Whales. The hinder margin is remarkable for its toothed or serrate appearance, due to irregular projections, of which the longest are along the terminal half. These suggest by their appearance some injury to the edge of the flukes, but are in reality wholly normal, since they are present in a large-sized foetus. The outline of the caudal peduncle is broken by a rounded protuberance just behind the anus, terminating in a deep transverse groove, and succeeded by a second compressed elevation. Anterior to the anus in both sexes is a rounded elevation, which in the male, contains the penis (True). Struthers describes well developed nipples in a male specimen, situated one on each side, a foot and a half behind the preputial opening and two feet in front of the anus. Each is enclosed within a shallow pouch whose opening is protected by a soft fleshy projection. The ear opening is a small hole, rather ovoid in shape, and about large enough to admit ‘“‘a rather small-sized uncut goose-quill” (Struthers). In the specimen described by Struthers it was situated “17 inches behind the posterior canthus of the eye-lids, and 2 to 3 inches below the level of the eye.” Vestiges of Teeth.— In a foetus 35 inches long, Eschricht (1849, Plate 4) has described and figured the vestigial teeth, which are arranged as in the toothed whales, in a long series in each jaw. They are small and bluntly conical, 28 on a side in the upper jaw, 42 on each side in the lower (in a 45-inch specimen) and in some cases were double-rooted. These are all that remain of a once functional set of simple teeth, and indicate the derivation of this and other whalebone whales from toothed whales. These embryonal teeth are resorbed and dis- appear before birth. Weight.— There are very few data as to the weight of these great mammals. Goodall (1913) writing of the Humpback Whale of the Indian Ocean, says that the whalemen reckon its weight as approximately a ton for each foot of length, so that a 45-foot whale would weigh about 45 tons. The basis of this computation is not related, but it may be a too liberal allow- ance. Guldberg (1907) has tried to compute the weight by considering the body of the whale as similar to a solid composed of two cones base to base, of which the combined length and greatest diameter are to be measured and the volume, and thus the weight, obtained by a mathe- matical formula. The specific gravity of the whale is considered the same as that of water. This computation gives a weight of about 18 tons for a 40-foot Humpback (= 18,283 kilograms), which is of course approximate only. A newly-born calf, taken in the Indian Ocean, is said by Goodall (1913) to have measured 16 feet in length and to have weighed two tons. Color.— A young female taken at Provincetown, Mass., in 1879, is described by True as having the upper surface of the head, body, and flukes black; ‘‘ the upper surface of the pectoral, HUMPBACK WHALE. 293 white, with a black mark extending along the axis from the root about half way to the tip, but not wide enough to reach the margins of the fin”; the lower surface of the pectorals was similarly colored and the posterior margin was irregularly marked with black. Each lobe of the flukes below had a large central white area, surrounded by a broad black border. The lower side of the body is usually black, more or less marbled with white on the throat and breast. Furrows on the belly light purplish flesh color. Variations from this pattern are due to the greater or less amount of white, and this generally on the lower surfaces. The dorsal fin may be irregularly spotted or blotched with white or its front or hind margins may be white. The throat and breast may be almost wholly black to almost all white, varying in every individual, but the belly is usually black, sometimes with white spots, and the margins of the jaws are commonly black. The pectorals are always white below, apparently, but above there is usually a basal black area which may be confined to a narrow central tongue or may reach to the anterior margin or even quite across the base, and encroach a trifle on the lower side in front. Again the black may extend as a narrow edging along the hinder margin of the pectorals. Rawitz (1900) advances some evidence for supposing that the white breast is more often present in adult animals, and that the immature specimens are more often black below; Cap- tain David Gray, an experienced whaler, also informed Struthers (1889, p. 16, foot note) that in the Bowhead the amount of white below increases with age. Hair.— Rawitz (1900, p. 73) found one or two short bristles on each of the dermal tubercles of the lower lip, and at the symphysis a single bristle at the summit of the numerous and irregu- lar tubercles at this point. A single whitish bristle projects from each of the double row of tubercles on either side of the upper jaw. Other hairs are found between these knobs, growing from wrinkles of the skin. Rarely these bristles are yellowish. The tubercles probably corre- spond to the slight swellings from which the hairs project in the Fin Whales, but in the latter, the number is less and the arrangement seems slightly more definite. Where two hairs grow from a single knob, it seems to be a case of fusion of two tubercles, morphologically distinct. Baleen.— The general appearance of the whalebone is dark brown, with coarse bristles of a similar color. True describes it as grayish black, the bristles along the exterior the same, but those towards the middle of the mouth paler. These bristles are about four to six inches long and forma matted mass. Often the anteriormost plates are white in part, but this appear- ance may be confined to those of one side only. The baleen plates number about four hundred on each side, and the longest of these scarcely exceed two feet. True found the longest to be 22 inches in a Newfoundland whale of 45 feet. External Measurements.— In comparison with the larger Fin Whales, the Humpback is much shorter. Adults of both sexes probably seldom exceed fifty feet over all. True found 47 feet the longest of those he measured at Newfoundland, and although some of the Norwegian specimens are said to have been larger, he points out that these measurements may be “over 294 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. all”’ instead of from tip of upper jaw to notch of flukes. An 88-foot specimen recorded in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society as taken at Bermuda in 1665 must have been a very extraordinary animal if the account can be accepted, but the evidence of later investi- gations is rather against it. I am unable to add to the recorded measurements of the species. True (1904, p. 222) gives the following measurements of a Newfoundland female. External Measurements of a Humpback Whale. Ft. In Meters Length, tip of snout to notch of flukes 45 5 13.84 Tip of snout to eye (center) a ' 3.40 ee «© vosterior insertion of dorsal fin 3 2 9.19 oo blowhole 8 4 2.54 ee «~~ “ anterior insertion of pectorals 16 0 4.87 ei Se became ile 0) 5.18 Vertical height of dorsal fin i 10 0.30 Length of pectoral from head of humerus 155 2 4.62 . f “ posterior insertion 12 9 3.88 Breadth across flukes 17 4 5.28 From notch of flukes to anus (center) 10 11 Beoe “ eS celbiimoyrts: : 1X ke) 3.88 “ SO a See navel 19 0 5.79 Depth of caudal peduncle at insertion of flukes 3 4 1.01 True also gives the proportions in percentages of total length of a female specimen taken at Cape Cod, Mass., and now in the U. 8. National Museum. These proportions are of a younger female and are of interest in comparison with the adult and larger animal from New- foundland, the measurements of which I have copied above. Following are these percentages for the two specimens as given by True. Newfound- | Cape Cod | land @ 9 Total length in feet and inches leeds Bah! Gaylayt Percent of total length, tip of upper jaw to eye | 24.6 2175 4 ie . ee ESSE blowhole 18.4 ISG “ “ “ rf “ “ “ “ “ pectoral 35 : 2 a8 ; 4 e iy . ee ee “~~ “Yack of dorsal fin | 66.4 70.6 é a s eae acs “~~ © corner of mouth 22.0 . a “~~ length of pectoral from axilla 28.1 28.4 . ee “greatest breadth of pectoral 6.1 « ei “height of dorsal 22 PAA) < af Jie “breadth of flukes, tip to tip 38 .2 27.1 HUMPBACK WHALE. 295 These percentages show a general agreement, but indicate a relatively smaller head in proportion to total length in the smaller animal. The only other striking difference is in the relative breadth of the flukes, which is much less in the latter. Musculature. Forearm and Finger Muscles.— Notwithstanding the great size of the pectoral limbs in the Humpback, the muscles of the forearm and fingers are actually ‘‘not half the size”’ of the same muscles in the Finback, as Struthers has shown. He found four of these muscles devel- oped, the same four that are present in the Finback. He describes the flexor carpi ulnaris as thick and fusiform, not spreading fan-like as in the Finback although it is not of less size. Its origin is entirely on the cartilaginous olecranon, or elbow, and it is fleshy for about half its length or 11 inches, after which it passes into a tendon of elliptical cross-section, and inserts into the proximal border of the pisiform cartilage. The flexor digitorum ulnaris resembles the same muscle in the Finback but is much smaller. It is a flattened narrow muscle, about 1.5 inches in greatest width at the middle. Its origin is from the ulna and its long tendon joins that of the flexor digitorum radialis. The latter is the larger, and arises from the ulna as well as from the radius. At about the junction of the middle and distal thirds of the forearm its tendon joins that of the flexor d. ulnaris, and a tendi- nous expansion is here formed, from which a separate tendon runs to the end of each digit. On the upper side of the flipper is but a single well developed muscle, the exlensor digitorum communis. Like the others, this is fleshy for but a short distance from its origin at the proxi- mal portion of both radius and ulna. It soon narrows to a large tendon which forms a triangu- lar expansion on the distal half of the carpus. From this pass off the four tendons, one to each digit. That to digit II is the largest, that to digit V the smallest. These tendons are attached to all the joints of the phalanges, and serve apparently through their tension to give additional stiffness to the great paddles. Pelvic Muscles.— Struthers has given an account of the muscles attached to the ves- tigial pelvic bones and femora. The relations are in general similar to those in the Fin- back. ‘‘Passing across between the posterior ends of the pelvic bones is the great interpelvic ligament... .It ties the pelvic bones together posteriorly, and supports the crura penis, which are involved in its tissue anteriorly, and entirely rest on it. Behind, it attaches the anterior part of the levator ani muscle, and more externally the inner part of the caudal muscular mass. Along the posterior edge of the great ligament is seen the posterior edge of the transversus periner muscle mostly concealed by and attached to the ligament; as broad and as thick as the palm of the hand and 6 to 8 inches in length transversely. In the ring between this muscle and the beginning of the levator ani muscle, is seen the retractor penis muscle, rope-like, right and 296 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. left, passing forwards on the under surface of the penis.’’ The vestigial femur has a small muscle, the retractor femoris, ensheathed in ligament, and originating from the great interpelvic ligament. It runs to the head of the femur, serving to pull it backward and a little inward. Struthers states that he could not find the corresponding muscle in the Finback; he further points out that its action is opposed by ligamentous connections. There would seem to be little obvious cause for the retention of the femur and its connections. Skeleton. (For a detailed account of the skeleton see Struthers, 1889.) The skull differs in many details from that of the Finbacks. Compared with that of the Common Finback Whale the more striking points may be briefly stated as follows. It has a proportionately shorter and broader rostrum, whose outline passes basally by a sweeping curve into that of the sides. The intermaxillaries expand slightly towards the tips, instead of tapering evenly. The general profile of the skull is somewhat more curved than in the latter. The shape of the nasals is rather characteristic: the two are produced upward to a sharp median point, but their free edges are scarcely notched. There is also a slight median projection of the frontals that separates the two nasals. The temporal opening is broader, and the frontals are much narrowed laterally instead of being nearly square, owing to the backward trend of the anterior border of the orbital plate. They thus approach the condition seen in the Right Whale, where these bones are greatly narrowed. The huge supraoccipital, forming most of the roof and back of the brain case, is narrower instead of broader than the condyles, at its vertex, and has a very faint median ridge, or none, instead of a well developed crest. Its sides converge regularly to the summit where it is broadly truncate; but in the Finback they become nearly parallel for the dorsal third. In ventral aspect the palatals are relatively shorter and more rounded at the ends. The coronoid process of the lower jaw is also less developed. In the following table (p. 297) are given the cranial measurements of a Humpback skull (probably from Cape Cod) in the Museum of Comparative Zodlogy. The vertebral formula may be taken as C 7, D 14, L (10) or 11, Ca 21 = (52) 53, according to True, who includes three New England specimens in his reckoning. All agree as to the number of cervical and of rib-bearing vertebrae, but two have ten and one has eleven lumbars, while the caudals vary from 19 to probably more. The loss of the minute terminal bones of the spine often causes some uncertainty as to the exact number of caudals, but Rudolphi records 22, other writers 21 in specimens examined. The latter probably repre- sents the normal number. The cervical vertebrae are all free normally, and differ remarkably from those of the Fin Whales in the reduction of the processes that form the vertebrarterial canal. In the second HUMPBACK WHALE. 297 Measurements of a Humpback Skull (M.C.Z. 6177). Percent of total mm. Ft. In length of skull Greatest length in a straight line 2000 6 6.7 100 Length of maxillary on upper side of skull (straight) 1520 ae hss) | 76.0 “ “intermaxillary“ “ “ « « & 1530 | 5 0.2 76.5 Greatest width across squamosals 1318 4 3.8 65.9 . “ ~ of supraoccipital 735 2 4.9 | 36.7 i“ “ across base of rostrum (in front of zygomatic proc- | esses of maxillaries) 710 2 3.9 | 3) - “ across zygomatic processes of maxillaries 1215 3 11.8 60.7 Least width at vertex 190 0 (a) 9.5 Outer edge of orbital process of frontal 210 0 8.3 10.5 Inner border “ “ i = ie 495 1 7.5 24.2 Nasals, median length 170 0 6.7 8.5 “combined width in front 165+ | 0 6.5 8.+ Breadth across condyles 260 OM OE2 | 13.0 Greatest length of palatal bones 445 1 a5) | PE, ; “«— “ tympanic 115 0 4.5 Del w “ “lower jaw (straight line) 2140 7 0.2 107.0 cervical this canal, at its inception, is open on account of the failure of the dorsal and ventral processes to unite laterally. In the third, fourth, and fifth vertebrae the ventral processes are successively reduced, and on the sixth and seventh are lacking entirely. In the Finbacks the canal is usually closed throughout the seven cervicals, though occasionally in the last one or two the ring is incomplete. In an immature specimen from Provincetown, True found the last neural spine to be on the 40th vertebra and the last transverse process on the 38th. (For detailed measurements and proportions of the vertebrae see Struthers, 1889, p. 61, and True, 1904, p. 234.) The dorsal spines of the vertebrae are rather narrower in lateral aspect than in the Fin- back, with less tendency to expansion at their tips. The transverse processes similarly are much less expanded terminally and are less flattened. The chevron bones are said to be only nine in a young specimen from Cape Cod (U. §. Nat. Mus. 16252), but there may possibly be two or three more. The ribs are in general shorter and stouter than in the Finback, except the two first, which are actually longer. The longest rib in both is the sixth. Struthers found, further, that the degree of curvature is greater in the Humpback, thereby giving it a wider thoracic cavity. The sternum is of characteristic form, thick and broad, with two lateral rounded wings, and a short posterior portion. Its shape is subject to much individval variation, however. 298 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. The first pair of ribs articulates with it, one on each side, behind the lateral wings. The articu- lation is by a cartilaginous band, continuous along the inner edge of the termination of the rib, differing from that of the Finback in which the attachment is by an anterior and a posterior ligament. The scapula is remarkable for the complete loss of its acromion, though near the anterior border, externally, is a slight ridge that indicates the location of the spinous process. The coracoid is faintly developed also, as a rounded knob at the anterior border of the glenoid cavity. The outline of the scapula (text-fig. 7, p. 191) is further characteristic in being somewhat fan-like, with a high and evenly convex vertebral border. The posterior outline is slightly and rather evenly concave, but the anterior border varies from slightly concave to nearly straight above the basal portion, or towards the antero-dorsal angle. True (1904) shows very conclusively that the relative breadth of the scapula increases regularly in proportion to the length of the skull. The humerus is short and massive, and the radius and ulna are likewise heavily fashioned. The radius is much larger than the ulna, broadly expanded at the distal extremity, and nearly straight. The ulna is much curved and is remarkable for the great reduction of the elbow or olecranon, which in the Fin Whales is produced proximally so as to overlap the outer edge of the humerus. The carpus consists of five more or less cartilaginous elements in addition to the large pisi- form, which stands out as a broad expansion on the ulnar side. These elements are marked off by surface grooves, and seem not to ossify till late in life. In the proximal row are repre- sented (1) the large ulnare which articulates with the outer portion of the radius, (2) a small intermedium, and (3) a radiale, both of which articulate with the radius only. Of the carpalia but two are present, which correspond apparently to digits II and IV. The digits are four in number, and it is generally considered that it is digit I that is want- ing but Kikenthal’s researches indicate that it is probably the third. Hyperphalangy is shown in digits II and IV, which together form the terminal half of the hand. The number of phalanges in the four digits is, respectively, 2, 7, 6, 3, according to Struthers, but True gives for two Cape Cod specimens, as mounted, 2, 6, 6, 2 and 2, 7, 6, 1 respectively. The pelvis is represented by a single three-cornered bone on each side of the body, both of which are joined together by a thin sheet of connective tissue. The anterior end, which is taken to represent the ilium is tapering and rounded. The posterior end, corresponding to an ischium is stouter. Including the cartilages at each end, the pelvic bone is about 9.25 inches long. There appears to be no trace remaining of an acetabular cavity such as is present in the Right Whale and the Finback. The femur is a very small nodule, entirely cartilaginous in small specimens, but becoming ossified in adult animals. It measured 5 inches in length on the right side, 3.75 inches on the HUMPBACK WHALE. 299 left side in the specimen described by Struthers, and tapered greatly at the free end. It is loosely connected to the pelvic bone through short fibrous bands, at a point internal to the outer angle of that bone. Appearance and Actions. As viewed at sea, the Humpback has several characteristics that may serve for its iden- tification. As with the Rorquals, it rises to the surface, delivers its ‘spout’ as the vertex of the head breaks the water, then as the blowholes remain widely open for the quick inhalation, a large portion of the forward part of the back appears momentarily. With the closing of the blowholes, the head is depressed, and much of the back appears, sometimes quite to the dorsal fin. The posterior part of the back arches slightly as the head goes down, the dorsal fin moves forward with the onward course of the body, and as it approaches the water again, the whale sinks beneath the surface leaving a ‘slick’ or round area of smooth water, behind. This is the intermediate or surface dive of which several may be made in succession as the whale feeds among the plankton currents or refreshes its lungs after a longer dive. Millais noted in one individual eight, ten, and twelve of these shorter dives successively between the deeper sound- ings. The longer dive differs in that the whale goes down in a nearly perpendicular course, more of the posterior part of the body appears above the surface with the greater effort, and the flukes of the tail finally rise clear of the water, and following the forward rolling of the body, dip in nearly vertically, looking like the spread wings of a great bird as they disappear. In these deeper dives the animal may be under water for a number of minutes, but in the shal- low dives, for a few seconds only. Rawitz (1900) relates that one which was slightly wounded by a harpoon stayed down for twenty minutes, and in a free state the long dives were of about fifteen minutes duration. A pair of Humpbacks that I saw July 1, 1911, in the Atlantic, 45° 15’ N., 37° 44’ W., impressed me as being most leisurely in their surface movements. They were in sight from the steamer for several moments, swimming at the surface, so as to expose the entire back from the posterior part of the head to just behind the dorsal fin, which appeared large and obtusely triangular. At intervals of about 15 seconds, the head was raised slightly to expose the blowholes for breathing, then after the spout, the head was lowered and the whale swam on slowly as before, with sometimes the entire back and dorsal fin exposed or again with the top of the back only above the surface or just awash. Again they would swim along just under the surface. As observed by other writers, the body is but little arched and the tail does not appear during the short surface dives, but in the deeper dives, the body is much arched and the flukes are thrown out as the whale goes in a nearly perpendicular course downward. A remarkable series of photographs illustrating the appearance of the Pacific Humpback in its dives and surface movements has been published by R. C. Andrews (1909, Plates 30-36). There seems to be no definite number of spouts between the long dives. No doubt this may depend 300 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. in part on whether or not the whale is feeding and the depth to which it must go to obtain food. The spout is of characteristic appearance. It issues as a single column, and at once expands to a broad balloon-shaped cloud, that shortly is dissipated in the air. This is quite different from the high narrow column of the larger Rorquals. Andrews (1909) considers that fifteen feet is a maximum height and ordinarily it seems less. The sound produced by the expulsion of the breath is described as a ‘‘metallic whistling”? (Andrews) and Rawitz (1900) even supposes that this sound may be modulated so as to produce several different tones, but it may be doubted if this is an effect consciously produced, as that author seems to think. Racovitza (1903), who several times in the Antarctic seas stood almost over a Humpback spouting at the side of the vessel, testifies that the breath of the huge creature possesses a very nauseating odor, due possibly to mucous secretion of the nasal passages. Goodall (1913) who had an opportu- nity of seeing a wounded Humpback blow at a distance of about twenty feet, describes the fleshy ridge at either side of the blowholes as resembling lips. ‘‘In the act of expiration these ‘lips’ are erected on either side, and then directly after the inspiration they fall over the openings, and thus effectually close them.” Besides these characteristic movements accompanying the breathing and diving actions, the Humpback is noted for its lively manners in what seems to be play or excitement. Often they will thrust a large portion of the head obliquely out of the water. At other times, they turn on their side and show the pectoral fin or a fluke of the tail above water, especially in feeding. Rawitz states that in closing the huge mouth while feeding, the Humpback turns nearly over on its back, but Andrews does not corroborate this statement. At times this whale will thrust the flukes and a portion of the peduncle above the surface, and thrash the water into foam with powerful strokes, or the movement is less active (Andrews, 1909). This is the so- called ‘lob-tailing.’ More interesting still is the remarkable habit of jumping or ‘breaching.’ Andrews (1909) has lately observed these movements in the Pacific Humpback. He states that the whale usually emerges from the water in a nearly vertical position, coming out clear, so as to show even the tips of the flukes and invariably falls back upon its side with a great splash. Struthers (1889) writing of the Humpback killed in the Firth of Tay, Scotland, says that it rose, seemingly for two thirds of its length almost perpendicularly out of the water, flapped its enormous paddles, and then fell to one side. This it once did thrice in succession. At other times very little of this activity is shown, but the animals behave as calmly as a Fin- back. The tremendous size of the pectoral fins suggests some special use. It may be that they are used in swimming to propel the body, when, for example, the tail is above the surface. An analogy is suggested among the seals. For whereas the Harbor Seal with its short fore flippers, uses the hinder extremities for propulsion, the Sea Lion with its long fore limbs uses these instead, to row itself about. Observations on the use of the fore limbs in the Hump-. HUMPBACK WHALE. 301 back are lacking, however. Rawitz (1900) supposes that the greater length of the paddles as compared with those of the Finbacks is an adaptation for turning the more unwieldy and slower- moving animal on its back, as it closes its Jaws, but this seems unlikely. The Whale and Swordfish Story.— The active movements of this species, when seen by the casual traveller at sea, are often mistaken for signs of a great conflict between sea monsters. Thus in our daily papers of late years it has become an almost regular feature of the early summer news to include a vivid account of a terrific battle viewed by the astonished passengers of some incoming steamer, in which the combatants are a whale and a swordfish. The honors of war are usually accorded to the latter, though occasionally the outcome is left uncertain. No doubt some of these tales have a basis of fact, and though reported in good faith, owe their inaccuracy to faulty observation. Such was probably the case with an account published in the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror (vol. 89, no. 52, June 26, 1909), which, as a sample of the ‘whale and swordfish’ story, may be quoted in full. ‘A remarkable fight between monsters of the sea was witnessed by the passengers and crew of the steamer Hsparta, which arrived at Boston from Port Limon, Costa Rica, on Monday. “The thrilling battle occurred south of Nantucket South Shoal lightship, between a whale and another great fish believed to be a swordfish. The whale was vanquished. “The whale was the only one of the two fighters visible to the passengers and crew. The great mammal lashed its tail violently, churning the waters into a mass of foam, while it was believed to be attacking the swordfish with its teeth. Several irregular plunges appeared to indicate a successful plunge by the fish beneath and finally the great whale was seen to throw its massive bulk clear of the water and then sink from sight. The water for a considerable distance about was dyed red with the blood, and it was believed the whale had received a mortal wound.” Several points at once appear wherein the facts given do not bear out the conclusions. “The whale was the only one of the two fighters visible,” we are told, so that the main reason for assuming there was a fight at all was simply the active movement of the whale, which after a violent bit of ‘lobtailing’ finally leaped clear of the water and disappeared. Probably the real explanation of the whole occurrence, as first suggested by Scammon, is that a playful Humpback Whale was seen going through various antics after the habit of its kind, ‘finning,’ ‘lobtailing’ and ‘breaching,’ as described previously. To one ignorant of the habits of the Tlumpback, such agile movements on the part of so great a creature might easily seem to be the accompaniment of some terrific conflict with an unseen foe. The seas ‘‘dyed red with- blood,” if not the result of an overwrought imagination, might be in part due to the presence of multitudes of the minute red crustaceans on which the whale feeds. A few years ago the Boston Transcript printed a like report of a ‘‘sea battle”? witnessed by passengers on the steamship Cymric when about a day’s run from Boston. In this case the 302 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. two combatants were ‘‘an enormous whale and a thresher.’’ ‘‘The whale could be seen to dive in the attempt to escape his tormentor, but the thresher was on him with agile leaps at every reappearance, and the water for yards around was stained with blood.” The grain of truth in this and similar stories may be again the active movements of a Humpback Whale seen none too well by undiscriminating voyagers. Possibly, too, the attacker was a Killer Whale (Orcinus) and I suspect this may have been the case also in regard to an account given me in the Bahama Islands, 1904, by a friend who reported that the Resident Justice of Governor’s Harbor, Eleu- thera, had witnessed an encounter near that place, between a whale and a swordfish. The fierce Orea or Killer Whale is often called ‘sword fish’ (Norwegian ‘sverdfisk’) on account of its high dorsal fin, and is known at times to attack the larger whales. Although I have seen no trustworthy account of such a case, it is not to be assumed that the true swordfish (Xiphias) may not occasionally attack a whale. Thus a writer in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, in 1700 (see Abridgement, 1722, vol. 2, p. 843) in recording a dead Sperm Whale, cast on the New England coast, concludes that “it is not very improbable but that it may have been kill’d by a certain Horny Fish, which is said by Mr. Terrey, in his East- Indian Voyage, to run his Horn into the Whale’s Belly; and which is known sometimes to run his Horn into Ships, perhaps taking them for Whales, and there snapping it asunder, as hap- pened not long since to an English Vessel in the West-Indian Seas.” That the swordfish will occasionally pierce the bottom of a pursuing boat is well known. But tradition is old on this subject. Bartholomew Anglicus, a Franciscan of the middle of the thirteenth century, wrote a treatise De Proprietatibus Rerum, to explain the allusions to natural objects mentioned in the Scriptures. The sources of information for natural history were Aristotle and Pliny, and the work was one of the most widely read of mediaeval times. His version reads: ‘‘ Also Jorath saith, that against the whale fighteth a fish of serpent’s kind, and is venomous as a crocodile. And then other fish come to the whale’s tail, and if the whale be overcome the other fish die. And if the venomous fish may not overcome the whale, then he throweth out of his jaws into the water a fumous smell most stinking. And the whale throweth out of his mouth a sweet smelling smoke, and putteth off the stinking smell, and defendeth and saveth himself and his in that manner wise.” The ‘‘sweet smelling smoke”’ was perhaps the spout. Voice.— Rawitz (1900) affirms that he was able to distinguish several different tones in the noise made by the spouting Humpback, due as he supposes, to the degree of tension stretching the nostrils as the breath is expelled. He believes that these different tones cor- respond to a voice, but the whole matter is much too uncertain to be accepted as established. A recent writer (F. A. Fenger, 1913, p. 671) testifies to a distinet sound produced as the Hump- back rises through the water to the surface. When waiting for the appearance of a large bull Humpback, which was being pursued in an open beat among the Grenadines, “‘a low humming” HUMPBACK WHALE. 303 was heard which the whalers at once recognized as made by the animal. This author writes ‘ that it was clearly audible on placing his ear against the planking of the boat as ‘‘a distinct note like the low tone of a ’cello.”’ It ceased abruptly as the whale broke water. A some- what similar sound is said to be produced by the White Porpoise (Delphinapterus). There seems little likelihood that the sound is a conscious vocal utterance, but may be produced involuntarily through the effort of retaining the breath. Pulsations or vibrations thus caused, might be communicated in some way to the boat as a resonator. Accompanying Vessels.— Moseley (1879) in his Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger, speaks of a Humpback Whale that followed the vessel for several days in the South Pacific. Rear-Admiral John Schouler, U. 5. N., informs me of a similar instance, where a large whale of unknown species accompanied his vessel from St. Paul’s Island to the Brazilian coast, and was daily seen in constant attendance off the quarter or abeam. In Hakluyt’s Voyages is arelation by Richard Fisher of the voyage of the ship Marigold to Cape Breton in which a whale, perhaps a Humpback or a Finback, attached itself to the explorers’ vessel and kept it company for several days off southern Newfoundland. This incident is told in the quaint language of the time as follows. ‘‘One thing very strange hapened in this voyage: to witte, that a mightie great whale followed our shippe by the space of many dayes as we passed by Cape Razo [Cape Race, Newfoundland], which by no meanes wee could chase from our ship, untill one of our men fell overboard and was drowned, after which time shee immediately forsooke 1 us, and never afterward appeared unto us. Moseley believes that when porpoises or whales accompany a ship in this manner, they ‘‘think they are attending a larger whale.” Food. So far as known, the Humpback feeds chiefly on the pelagic crustaceans, T’hysanoéssa inermis and probably Meganyctiphanes, which it engulfs in quantities as it swims about in the plankton currents. According to Rawitz, it often turns more or less completely on its back when it closes its mouth in feeding on these small shrimp-like animals, but this is not always the case. It is probable that small fish form a part of the diet but exact observations are meager on this point. Guldberg (1887) states that on the Norwegian coasts they follow the great schools of capelin (Mallotus) that come inshore to spawn, and the same fish is eaten in the Newfoundland and Labrador waters where it abounds in summer. There seems to be no evidence that the Humpback eats herrings on our coast. Andrews (1909, p. 221) records of the Pacific Humpback (M. versabilis) that one killed in Alaskan waters contained ‘‘a great quantity of codfish (probably Gadus macrocephalus), the largest being about sixteen inches in 1Hakluyt, R. The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation. Everyman’s Library editon, vol. 6, p. 96. 304 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. length.”’ This must be very unusual, for as the same author states, the small schizopod erus- taceans are all that are usually found in stomachs of this whale. Millais (1906, p. 181) is authority for the statement that it feeds also on squid. A curious case is mentioned by John- ston,' of a dead Humpback, thrown up on the shore near Berwick, England, in September, 1829. “On opening the stomach six cormorants were found in it, and another in the throat, so that it was presumed this Whale had been choaked in the attempt to swallow the bird.”’ Breeding Habits. Practically nothing is known of the breeding habits of the Humpback on the New England coast. They are often seen in pairs, however, during the summer months, not only on our coasts but in more northern seas as well. Guldberg found them in pairs off the Norwegian coast in April and May, and Rawitz (1900) made a similar observation in mid-July. Mr. Owen Bryant saw numbers of them during a cruise from the Isles of Shoals to Nova Seotia, Sep- tember 4-6, 1903, most of which were in pairs. It is supposed that copulation takes place during early summer and that pregnancy lasts about a year. The young are probably born in the spring therefore, but there is practically no exact information on this subject (Guldberg, 1887). A single young one is produced at a birth as a rule, though twins are known in rare cases. Verrill (1902) mentions young Humpbacks 15 or 20 feet long in the Bermudan waters in Feb- ruary, and such were no doubt newly born. Goodall (1913) writing of the Humpback of the East African coast, tells of one killed in the act of parturition, whose calf measured sixteen feet in length and weighed two tons. The length of the mother is not given but assuming it to have been in the neighborhood of 48 feet, the length of the calf must have been a third that of its mother. The affection of the mother for her young one is very strong. As with the Right Whale, she will not leave it if in danger, and the whalemen take advantage of this by killing first the young one, then attacking the devoted mother, who refuses to be driven off. It is supposed that the young Humpbacks are born in the warmer waters to the south of our coasts. Mr. J. §. Wildman who has for some years carried on a fishery for this species in the Grenadines (B. W. I.), tells me that during the month of March it is common to see in those waters young calves accompanying a bull and cow Humpback. They seem to be at that time in passage and disappear by May. Possibly they follow the Gulf Stream northwards. Verrill’s statement above quoted indicates that young are brought forth also in the seas about the Bermudas, though he adds (p. 274) that most of the young ones seen in those waters in spring are from twenty to thirty feet long, and so may very probably have been immature ‘Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Northumberland, Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1831, vol. 1, p. 7. HUMPBACK WHALE. 305 animals in passage, born in more southern waters. The young certainly accompany the mother for a considerable period, until they are upwards of thirty feet in length and probably, as the whalemen suppose, are ‘yearlings,’ a year or more old. Longevity. Nothing is known as to the age to which this whale may live. At least twenty years is probably not excessive, if we may credit Professor Verrill’s (1902) account of a Humpback he saw with others in the Bay of Fundy about 1859. This particular specimen had a large barnacle so situated at the edge of its blowholes as to produce a characteristic whistling sound as the whale spouted. According to local fishermen the whale had been known by this mark for upwards of twenty summers. Assuming the truth of the observation, it implies a fairly long term of life for the barnacle, as well as a regularity of habit for the whale to return thus annually to the same waters. Occurrence in New England Waters. Although the Humpback sometimes comes very close inshore, it is very rarely indeed that one becomes stranded. Baird (Rept. U.S. Comm. Fish and Fisheries for 1879, 1882, p. xx) reports a 30-foot specimen that stranded in Provincetown Bay, and was secured for the U. 8. National Museum. This is the only such occurrence known to me in New England, except the ancient report of one that was stranded in Nantucket Harbor in 1608, and killed by the Indians. Not uncommonly they will enter harbors or even go a short distance up the mouths of the large rivers. Thus there are records of Humpbacks entering the harbor at Nantucket, and of another that made its way up the Piscataqua River beyond the Portsmouth Bridge, N. H., nearly three miles from the sea. Again one was captured in Newport Harbor, and others are reported close inshore as in case of one seen near the rocky coast of Marblehead by Mr. H. L. Shurtleff in 1903. Two whales, probably Humpbacks, appeared in Portland Harbor, Maine, in 1908. Usually, however, they keep well off shore, and most of the records seem to be of schools or small companies seen about Nantucket Shoals, on the Georges Banks, or off Province- town and the outer parts of Massachusetts Bay. In the following pages are gathered together such records as I have been able to find, published or unpublished, of the occurrence of the Humpback Whale in New England waters. Their comparatively meager number is unquestionably due, not to the scarcity of the species off our coasts, but to the few definite observations available, and the relatively small pro- portion of whales that are killed or stranded and reported. Fishermen off shore occasionally meet with the species and it is undoubtedly of much more regular occurrence than the few 306 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. records would seem to indicate. There is some evidence, too, that of late years the Hump- backs as well as the Finbacks have become fewer or have deserted these coasts. Such, at all events, is the observation of Captain H. L. Spinney whose great familiarity with the conditions about Cape Elizabeth lends weight to his statement that “‘with the driving away or extermina- tion of the small fish” through over-fishing or other causes, “the whales have dropped out of notice.”’ Indeed, he has seen no Humpbacks in local waters for twenty years past. Under the occurrence of the Finback, I have quoted further from Captain Spinney’s letters to me on this matter. In the table on page 309 I have summarized what definite records of New England Hump- backs I have found. 1757.— On November 5th, one Jasher Taylor of Yarmouth, Mass., made affidavit before the town clerk of having struck but lost a Humpback Whale, evidently near that shore. 1825.— About October 26th, a Humpback Whale came into the outer harbor at Nantucket, and was seen spouting, and throwing up its flukes as it dove. Although two boats were at once manned and sent in pursuit, the approach of night made it necessary to abandon the chase (Nantucket Inquirer, Oct. 31, 1825). 1827.— The Portsmouth Journal gives a detailed account of a whale that had gone up the Piscataqua River beyond the Portsmouth Bridge, N. H., about three miles from the sea, and seemed unable or unwilling to repass the bridge in order to reach the ocean again. It was finally attacked and killed by the citizens and brought to Portsmouth (Nantucket Inquirer, June 16 and 23, 1827). The ridge on the back and the crenulate outline of the flukes seem to identify it as a Humpback though allowance must be made for certain discrepancies in meas- urements given. Two were killed on the Nantucket Shoals during the first ten days of August, by the sloop Rapid (Nantucket Inquirer, Aug. 11, 1827). 1836.— A note in the Providence Courier makes mention of a whale that had been seen several times off Newport, R. I., during the last of June. It was finally captured in Newport Harbor, ‘‘north of the Asylum; it measures fifty feet in length, and is of the Humpback species and is supposed to be the same which was seen off Pawtuxet on Wednesday morning last.” 1840.— In December, 1840, a Humpback Whale, that made some fifty barrels of oil, was killed in Provincetown Harbor (Alexander Young: Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1844, p. 119, footnote). 1841.— According to a report in the Boston Transcript, the steamer Huntress saw a large school of Humpbacks not far from Cape Elizabeth, Maine, about the first week in June (Nan- tucket Inquirer, vol. 21, no. 47, June 12, 1841). The boat passed close to one of about forty feet in length. | 1844.— A skeleton, mounted and preserved in the Museum at Niagara Falls, New York, HUMPBACK WHALE. 307 _ was made by Cope (1865) the type of his Megaptera osphyia. The individual was found dead at sea off Petit Manan Lighthouse, Maine, in July of this year, and was towed to shore. The animal was said to have been fifty feet long. 1845.— What was doubtless a Humpback Whale, was killed off the coast of Maine in July, 1845, and its skeleton, ‘‘set up at much labor and expense,” was exhibited in Boston shortly after. Dr. J. B. S. Jackson made it the subject of brief remarks at a meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, August 20th, 1845. In the possession of 51 or 52 vertebrae and fourteen pairs of ribs, Dr. Jackson pointed out its agreement with Cuvier’s ‘‘ Rorqual du Cap,” a Humpback of the South Atlantic. The specimen was 40 feet long, and a female, nearly adult (Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 1845, vol. 2, p. 53). 1852.— A Humpback Whale was captured by a whaling schooner from Provincetown about the middle of June, some twenty miles southeast of Cape Elizabeth Light, Maine. It was towed to House Island and flensed. The yield of oil was estimated at forty barrels (Nantucket Inquirer, vol. 32, no. 73, June 21, 1852). During the first three weeks of August six Humpbacks were killed by the schooner Hamilton of Nantucket on the Shoals. Five others were struck but lost (Nantucket Inquirer, vol. 32, no. 100, Aug. 27, 1852). 1859.— On April 22d, a dead Humpback was reported 20 miles south of Nantucket South Shoal by the ship Richmond from Savannah. The note adds that several Humpback Whales had been seen in Massachusetts Bay during the last week of April (Nantucket Inquirer, vol. 48, no. 32, April 29, 1859). During late July and early August of this year, Professor A. E. Verrill, while engaged in marine investigations about Grand Manan, “personally observed large schools of Humpbacks, with some Fin-backs in the Bay of Fundy. They were especially numerous at the seining grounds known as the ‘Ripplings,’ east of Grand Manan Island, towards the center of the Bay, where the strong opposed tidal currents make a large area of very rough water during flood tide” (A. E. Verrill: The Bermuda Islands, 1902, p. 275). 1863.— During the last week of October of this year, ‘‘three large Humpback Whales” were seen on Nantucket Shoals by the crew of the schooner Samuel Chase. On learning of this, Captain Patterson of Nantucket set out in the Rainbow in the hope of making a capture but as nothing further is chronicled, he was probably unsuccessful (Nantucket Inquirer, vol. 43, no. 47, Oct. 31, 1863). 1877.— The Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror (vol. 58, no. 15, Oct. 31, 1877) relates a singular accident that befell a citizen who was coot shooting from a dory off Gunner’s Point, South Plymouth, Mass., on October 30th. A Humpback Whale rose and spouted some distance off, and on again coming to the surface, it rose directly under the boat, oversetting it and tipping its occupant into the water. Fortunately he was quickly rescued by some men in another dory. 308 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 1878.— True (1904, p. 232) records a skeleton in the U. 8. National Museum (no. 21492) from a whale killed at Cape Cod probably in this year. 1879.— On April 12th, a thirty-foot specimen stranded in Provincetown Bay. A cast was made of it for the U. 8. National Museum and its skeleton is also preserved there (no. 16252) (S. F. Baird: Rept. U. S. Commr. Fish and Fisheries for 1879, 1882, p. xx). Two others were killed in the spring of this year in Provincetown Harbor by the use of bomb-lances (G. B. Goode: Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U.5., 1884, sect. 1, p. 27). In this year Humpbacks were abundant in summer off the Maine coast, and four were taken previous to September Ist, by a small schooner, the Brilliant, of Provincetown (ibid.). 1880.— In the spring of this year one was killed and brought into Bass Harbor, Maine (A. H. Clark in Goode’s Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. 8., 1887, sect. 5, vol. 2, p. 40). Three others were killed during the spring and summer by Provincetown whalers in New Eng- land waters (ibid., p. 42). 1881.— On May 14th, no less than twenty Humpbacks were shot with bomb-lances in Provincetown Harbor (G. B. Goode: Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. 8., 1884, sect. 1, p: 2/). 1895.— About May 1st, a Humpback was wounded by Captain E. W. Smith, off Province- town. 1903.— Mr. Owen Bryant tells me that during a cruise from the Isles of Shoals to Nova Scotia, September 4-6, he saw in all a hundred or more. They were mainly in pairs and per- haps mated at this time. Mr. Howard L. Shurtleff gives me a note of a whale that was seen close to the Marblehead shore, Massachusetts, for an entire afternoon in early September. With a glass, he could see the barnacles on the whale as it came partly out of water, and noticed that in diving it threw its tail clear. These two facts seem to indicate that it was a Humpback. 1908.— Two whales that appeared in Portland Harbor, Maine, in July of this year, may have been Humpbacks. According to the newspaper report (Lewiston Journal) they were watched for some while ‘‘ peacefully romping about” near Peak’s Island, occasionally ‘‘flapping their huge tails out of water.” The latter observation, if true, would seem to indicate Hump- backs. 1911.— A number of Humpbacks were seen on August 5th, by my friend, Dr. Charles W. Townsend, while off the Maine coast about an hour’s voyage from Cape Ann, en route from St. John, N. B., to Boston. Occasionally five or six were seen close together, and when they sounded, their tails were lifted from the water in the characteristic manner. 1913.— About August 14th, Mr. Walter H. Rich observed numbers of Humpbacks off Sankoty Head, Mass. HUMPBACK WHALE. 309 Humpbacks in New England Waters. Locality g g 4 aD 2 ¢ 5 F 4 0) | 3 ls E g E 2 = Beale eo les jes a oe hee Wee < = 5 5 < D S || a 4 i Off Yarmouth, Mass. 1725: eee Caceres |(Pecscven stall, oer | ok ar lls ae at clliean, shy eons ace tl Nantucket Harbor, Mass. SSP Ome | ees | seal Shee ates cal rcesee le re meceeeslleneses c cncll cece oe clic snaetoe i | Piscataqua River, N. H. ISP AGE || sts oscd | eactcnel [Eectotc|esarcko eA Picerate 1 Nantucket Shoals TS pn | meets Sell cece ca ewe Mace seal Ps Ale Off Newport, R. I. EEA | GSS | ie ee 1 | Rrovincetownelarhorp lasses s40 emcees |tat anoles sullsaceas len seele sess culk umes Pas ieeealty al Off Cape Elizabeth, Me. TSA ivevera orto | ere evel ints oweys = locate src n Off Pett Manan Lighthouse | 1844 |....)....|:...)..-...|....- 1 Maine Coast SAD elle cerei|e ere Breet eee lacs 1 Off Cape Elizabeth, Me. SSSR" leereents| eediee Sheetal erence Wea: 1 Nantucket Shoals S52 saree |e PA eee NEW tyra cyees| Coonan 11 Nantucket Shoals ISS OR Reva | eee heh Massachusetts Bay S595 | Bere |p Sessile gal Bay of Fundy Its) 5 an alleges Beeches eneee call enero n n Nantucket Shoals I SOSi |e |e BIS cl he eek orate |e san lle teal lta aie ere iced earache 3 Off South Plymouth, Mass. | 1877 |....].... Berar sec eee fall pepsin eee Feel fies ec sl heii, aes «ll ese 1 Provincetown Bay, Mass. IRS (8) Sse aS eke Piel eat Near Bass Harbor, Me. SSON yrs | ee: Sart spring and summer Provincetown Harbor, Mass. | 1881 |....].... Petal | eorahes 20 Off Provincetown, Mass. TSO Bile coe |e See ee, 1 Gulf of Maine OOS Aa aalee ale pariiee = tr eis |b aan eee | ee er olla! aR yk 100+ Marblehead, Mass. IASC ES [svorchal las Seol thers ntenseenel esate craillo ate Glee ee ain lamemmiele 1 Portland Harbor, Me. UG OSH Ae alee ot eral ra evalllsceede cloves chats 2 Off Cape Ann, Mass. TSE yes sl loroin al bien Oral eseectceel (ehaiatord| acerca eta n Off Sankoty Head, Mass. GIS aN eae | evade Ge teal ctsrecll pyceet locustac oleeereen at n | | 0 0 | 0 |2+1n} 21+ |5+1n|2+1n/13+3n j101=| 5 1 1 The table brings out rather strikingly that so far as the evidence goes, the Humpback is practically absent from our coast in winter. There are no records for January, February, or March, and but one each for November and December. They begin to appear in April and may be common during the summer, but after September or October again disappear. It is noticeable that the larger schools of them are usually seen well off shore, and that those seen nearer the mainland are usually solitary individuals. Captain H. L. Spinney writes me (1913) that during his observations in the region about Cape Elizabeth, Maine, covering forty years past, he used to see Finbacks and Humpbacks, particularly the former, at least from April to November, but that July and August were the months when they were seen in greatest numbers. This corroborates the table, and indicates that the Humpback is a spring and summer visitor with us. 310 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. These facts lead us to inquire further into the movements of the Humpback in the North Atlantic. Guldberg (1904, p. 376) has summarized a number of observations bearing on the movements of Humpbacks on the European coasts, Greenland and adjacent seas. He con- cludes that the Humpbacks of the North Atlantic frequent the higher latitudes in summer and fall, and for the rest of the year scatter in the search for better feeding grounds, which for the most part they find in the more southern latitudes. It is certain that our present knowledge on this matter is quite insufficient for more than tentative conclusions. In the western North Atlantic, however, I have gathered a number of facts as to the presence of this species, which may be briefly summarized. In late winter, especially in February and March, Humpbacks are found with young calves among the islands of the Lesser Antilles and the Bermudas. Among the Grenadines (Lesser Antilles) the Humpback fishery is followed from January to May, during which time, single whales, cows with calves, and groups consisting of a pair with a calf, are to be found. Verrill records that among the Bermudas the Humpbacks were found in the same months with young calves and in former days were actively pursued there. They begin to appear off the New England coasts in April, are common here in summer, and reach the coasts of Newfoundland in numbers by late April, May, and June. By late summer they pene- trate Davis Strait and Baffin’s Bay on the South Greenland coast. Guldberg says that from January to April 19, 1902, only five were killed on the Newfoundland coasts by the steam- whalers, but from that date till the end of August about a hundred were captured. These facts tend to show that during the colder months, December through March, most of the Hump- backs of the western North Atlantic are to be found inside (south of) the Gulf Stream area, and that their young are born in those warmer waters. They are not necessarily in coastal waters at these times, for I have records of Humpbacks, March 28th and March 29th, near 27° 11’ N., 50° 07’ W., and 26° 38’ N., 48° 58’ W., respectively, a pair in each case. By April they work north. Those in the Caribbean Sea have left it by May, and those that wintered farther north (as we may suppose) are already appearing on the New England coasts. The northward movement continues till late summer, when there is a withdrawal to the Gulf Stream waters and southward to the sub-tropics. No doubt, as with migrating birds, this is a gradual process and it may be that those animals that wintered farthest north, are the ones to reach our coast first and that they are the same schools that push to the higher latitudes and the Greenland waters, while those that wintered farthest south spend the summer in our waters. As with birds, also, there are always a few stray individuals that from accident or choice find it possible to winter to the north of the general winter range of the species, so that it is not surprising to find a few even on the Newfoundland coast in the cold months. These we should expect to be nonbreeding cows or bulls. It is known also that they may be present in the Finmark waters in February and March. What determines these migratory movements is yet uncertain. Temperature undoubtedly HUMPBACK WHALE. 311 is a factor, but probably an indirect one, in having an influence on the food supply. Not unlikely, too, is the supposition that the warmer southern waters are more tolerable for the newly born young. Of the return movement in fall there is very little actual knowledge. Verrill speaks of a large school, presumably of Humpbacks, seen on October 23, 1879, off the Bermudas, and sup- poses they were in passage southward. Humpback Whale Fishery in New England. The first recorded capture of the Humpback Whale in New England seems to have been in 1608, according to Clark! ‘‘when a party of Indians killed a humpback whale which got stranded on a part of Nantucket, called Caton, in the inner harbor.’ For the first century or more during which our forefathers pursued the shore fishery on these coasts, the Right Whale was the chief object of the industry. Occasionally an attempt was made to kill a Finback if some favorable chance offered, but the Humpback Whale being somewhat more sluggish and less powerful than the swift Finback Whales, and yielding more oil in proportion, was undoubt- edly killed in small numbers. Of this, however, there is little actual record. Freeman in his History of Cape Cod (1862, vol. 2, p. 218) mentions the following entry by the Town Clerk of Yarmouth in the town records: ‘‘I, Jasher Taylor, Nov. 5, 1757, struck a hump-back whale on the back, about two yards past the fin,— the iron, with a thick head and short warp, not marked.” This record was of course made in accordance with a regulation passed a number of years previously, requiring persons who struck and lost a whale, to make this form of affi- davit immediately thereafter, so as to avoid controversy concerning ownership, should the whale subsequently drift ashore dead. ‘‘Craft [7. e., whaling implements] claims the whale’’ has ever been an unwritten law among whalemen. With the decrease in numbers of the Right Whale on our coasts, the Humpback seems to have been more frequently pursued during the eigtheenth century by vessels making short - cruises from Nantucket or the Cape Cod towns. The Nantucket Shoals and George’s Banks were favorite ‘grounds’ for this fishery, which seems often to have been combined with cod- fishing. The American Revolution placed a temporary check upon the progress of offshore whaling, as our vessels were ever liable to capture by the English privateers and men-o’-war. To the Nantucketers, then largely dependent on this means of livelihood, it became therefore a serious matter, and in 1781, we find them approaching Admiral Arbuthnot, at that time in command of the English navy in American waters, with a petition to be allowed to carry on their whaling operations unmolested. This request was generously granted, but so impoverished had the 1 Clark, A. Howard, in Goode’s Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1887, sect. 5, vol. 2, p. 30. 312 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. islanders become by reason of the war, that few were able to make much avail of the privilege. After the Revolution and until the War of 1812, the New England whalers continued to take Humpbacks on the shoals to the eastward of Nantucket, where, according to Macy,' these as well as codfish, “‘were plenty, which gave encouragement to many, who would otherwise have been idle, to engage in the pursuit of them. But unfortunately a privateer came among the fleet, and took several vessels, one of which belonged to Nantucket.’’ This seems to have again placed a temporary check upon whaling in home waters. Although the Revolution and the War of 1812 nearly destroyed the American whaling industry, it soon regained its place and in the decade following 1835 was at the height of its importance. But it was now concerned chiefly with long voyages to distant seas or often around the globe, so that we have little record of what few whales were taken on our coast. No doubt, however, an occasional Humpback was killed by fishermen in boats from the shore or more often from their fishing vessels on the Shoals. In his article on the fisheries of Massachusetts, Clark? writes that ‘‘Mr. Elisha Atwood... . informed me that seventy-five or eighty years ago [7. e., 1805-1810], there were four captains, each, with his vessel, employing fourteen hands, hailing from Wellfleet. They went to Labrador for right-whale, Mount Desert and vicinity for humpback-whale, and the West Indies for sperm-whale. There were watchers on the shore who signalled to the whalemen the appearance of a whale in the bay [Provincetown Bay]. These men would then go out after it and tow it inshore to the islands, where the oil was tried out. There is no whaling from Wellfleet now. Fifty-five years ago [7. e., about 1830] the whale-oil trying on Griffin’s Island and Bound Brook Island [Truro, Mass.] came to an end. Just prior to this sixteen persons were employed. Ten or twelve years ago [1877 or 1875] the last vessel was fitted out for the West Indies, but proved a failure.’ Captain N. E. Atwood of Provincetown is authority for the statement that “a great many [Humpbacks] have been killed near Provincetown within his recollection: that is to say, or since 1817. One harpooned in the harbor in 1840 yielded fifty-four barrels of oil. Two were killed in the spring of 1879, with bomb-lances.”’ * The Nantucket Inquirer of August 11, 1827, notes the arrival at that port of the sloop Rapid, Captain Myrick, from a whaling excursion of ten days “‘over the shoals.” Two Hump- backs constituted the catch. These had been taken ‘‘about 20 miles eastward of this island, in 18 fathoms of water. The blubber....was peeled off immediately in large ‘blanket pieces,’ or flakes, about 10 feet in length, two or three feet wide, and from 4 to 10 inches in thickness. The mass thus stripped from the carcasses, nearly filled the vessel’s hold; and will probably produce 50 barrels of oil worth 38 to 40 cents per gallon.” The practice of stripping the blubber 1 Macy, Obed. History of Nantucket, 1835, p. 174. 2 Clark, A. Howard, in G. B. Goode’s Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. 8., 1887, sect. 2, p. 235. ® Goode, G. B. Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1884, sect. 1, p. 27. HUMPBACK WHALE. 313 at sea and bringing it ashore to try out the oil in the vats there seems to have been generally followed on the Massachusetts coasts at this time. In these years too (from 1810 to about 1840) Humpback Whales were undoubtedly the chief object of the Maine shore-fishery, an account of which is given by Karll and Clark,’ as follows: ‘‘Capt. J. Bickford, a native of Winter Harbor, is reported by Mr. C. P. Guptil to have cruised off the coast in 1845 in schooner Huzza, and to have captured eight whales, one of which was a finback, the rest humpback whales. This schooner made only one season’s work... . Mr. Earll states that according to Capt. George A. Clark and Captain Bickford whaling was extensively carried on from Prospect Harbor, [Maine] for many years. The fishing began about 1810, when Stephen Clark and Mr. L. Hiller, of Rochester, Mass., came to the region, and built tryworks on the shore, having their lookout station on the top of an adjoining hill. The whales usually followed the menhaden to the shore, arriving about the first of June and remaining till September. When one was seen the boats, armed with harpoons and lances, immediately put out from the land and gave chase. If they succeeded in killing the whale, it was towed to the flats of the harbor at high water, where it was secured and left to be cut up at low tide. Ten years later they began using small vessels in the fishery, and by this means were enabled to go farther from land. The fishery was at its height about 1835 to 1840, when an average of six or seven whales was taken yearly. The largest number taken in any one season was ten. The average yield of oil was 25 to 30 barrels for each whale. The business was discontinued about 1860, since which date but one or two whales have been taken.’’ The skeleton of a Humpback, probably one of those killed by the Huzza in July, 1845, was mounted and exhibited in Boston that summer.’ The specimen found dead in July, 1844, off Petit Manan Lighthouse, and later made by Cope (1865) the type of his Megaptera osphyia, was perhaps also killed by the shore whalers. The same account says that ‘‘shore-whaling in the vicinity of Tremont, [Maine,] began about 1840. Mr. Benjamin Beaver and a small crew of men caught three or more whales annually for about twenty years, but gave up the business in 1860. No more whales were taken from this time to the spring of 1880, when one was taken and brought into Bass Harbor, and yielded 1,200 gallons of oil [38 barrels], but no bone of value.’ Of the whales captured during these years, a few were probably Finbacks, but there can be little doubt (from the time of year, amount of oil, and the fact that Finbacks were generally unmolested) that Humpbacks were the species chiefly sought. Apparently no other regular efforts were made to capture Humpbacks on the Maine coast until the eighties, when small steamers with bomb guns probably took a few together with Finbacks. 1 Clark, A. Howard. The Whale Fishery, in Goode’s Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1887, sect. 5, vol. 2, p. 40. 2 Jackson, J. B.S. Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 1845, vol. 2, p. 53. 314 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. On the Massachusetts coast, however, there was still more or less fishing for these whales from time to time, and ‘“‘humpbacking on the Shoals” was probably the frequent resort of many a Nantucket or Cape Cod fisherman in the years preceding 1850. A writer in the Nan- tucket Inquirer of 1874, recalls the days of his boyhood, ‘‘ when we were often made glad by the arrival of a fortunate ‘humpbacker,’”’ for the crisp bits of ‘‘flukes and scraps”’ resulting from the trying out of the blubber on shore, were perquisites highly esteemed by the childish fancy. In a more or less desultory sort of way this pursuit of Humpback Whales was kept up, even to the time of the Civil War. Thus an item in the Nantucket Inquirer (vol. 32, no. 100, Aug. 27, 1852) records the arrival at that port of the schooner Hamilton, which during the first three weeks of August, 1852, had been cruising on the ‘‘Shoals”’ for Humpbacks. In this time,’ eleven had been struck, of which six were “saved” and produced 130 barrels of oil. This, the account states, was the Hamulton’s second successful cruise, but whether in the same or the previous season, is not clear. On the first cruise the amount of oil secured was but sixty barrels. In the same year, the Nantucket Inquirer (vol. 32, no. 121, Oct. 13, 1852) notes that the schooner Union, of Provincetown, “‘recently captured a whale off Cape Ann, which is the second one that has been taken in that locality within the past few days.” Judging from the time of year, these may have been Humpbacks. In 1854, the schooner Wm. P. Dolliver started in early July for ‘‘a whaling cruise on the Shoals,” but when only a short distance out from Nantucket Harbor, shot a Finback with a bomb-lance and put back with the prize. Again the discovery of three Humpback Whales ‘‘on the Shoals” late in October, 1863, was considered sufficient inducement for one of the Nantucket captains to set sail shortly after in pursuit, but with what result does not appear (Nantucket Inquirer, vol. 48, no. 47, Oct. 31, 1863). With the general introduction of the bomb-lance and the renewed activity in shore whaling by means of small steamers, a great many whales were killed in New England waters during the ’70’s and ’80’s, but what proportion of these were Humpback Whales cannot now be ascer- tained. Mr. J. Henry Blake gives me a note of one taken in Cape Cod Bay in 1875, by Jesse Glenn of the schooner Starlight. ‘‘Two were killed in the spring of 1879, with bomb-lances”’ near Provincetown.! In this same year ‘‘ the Humpbacks were abundant on the coast of Maine. One of the most successful whalers out of Provincetown this season is the ‘ Brilliant, a very old pink-stern schooner of seventeen tons, which had been hunting this species off Deer Isle, Maine. Up to September 1, she had taken four whales, yielding one hundred and forty-five barrels. The ‘Brilliant’ carries but one whale-boat and tries out the oil upon shore, towing in the whales as they are killed.”! Of the hundred or more whales killed in our waters by Provincetown whalers in 1880, but three were said to be Humpbacks, the rest ‘‘of the finback species.” ” In the following year, however, no less than twenty Humpbacks were shot with bomb-lances in Provincetown Harbor on May 14th; doubtless others were killed at this time. 1 Goode, G. B. Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. 8., 1884, sect. 1, p. 27. 2 Clark, A. Howard. In G. B. Goode’s Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1887, sect. 5, vol. 2, p. 42. HUMPBACK WHALE. 315 A chpping from the Provincetown Beacon, kindly loaned me by Mr. J. Henry Blake, states that a Humpback was wounded about the first of May, 1895, by Capt. “Ed. Walter” Smith, a Provincetown whaler. After this year the shore whaling with small steamers was abandoned by the New England fishermen. Yield of Oil. The amount of oil yielded by the Humpback Whale is given by Goode ! as averaging from twenty-five to thirty barrels. This is the yield under the old method of trying out the blubber alone. The modern practice of trying out the entire carcass affords a greater return of oil, but that from the flesh and bones is inferior. The specimen previously mentioned that gave 54 barrels must have been unusually fat. The average of fourteen Humpbacks, the totals of which have just been given, was 33.3 barrels each. The oil is not distinguished commercially from that of the Balaenopterae. The whalebone is short and coarse-grained and in former times was thrown away by the fishermen along with the rest of the carcass after stripping the blubber. At, the present time, however, it is carefully saved and sold with that of Finbacks and Blue Whales by the whaling companies of Newfoundland and the northern European coasts. Enemies and Parasites. It is not known that the Humpback has much to fear from predacious sea animals. As before mentioned, the Killer Whale no doubt at times attacks a larger whale, but there are few authentic data on this point. That the swordfish may attack a whale is also not impossible, and if tradition may be believed, it has occasionally happened. Such instances must be very rare, however. Of external parasites, the Humpback is the host of a most characteristic barnacle, Coronula, which has become remarkably adapted for attachment to the exterior of the whale through the lobular outpocketings of the valves of its shell, whereby it is firmly embedded in the whale’s integument. These barnacles occur particularly at the symphysis of the jaw, and along the knobs on the outer edge of the pectorals, on the rough tubercles Text-ric. 12.— Whale louse : (Paracyamus boopis), a crusta- of the head, and sometimes about the anus or scattered on the oan aeroe tifecanl ie Serius ena Whale (after Lutken, 1873, Plate ventral part of the abdomen. The whalemen commonly believe aa , fig. 6). that the lively antics of the Humpback are the result of its efforts to get rid of these parasites. Darwin, in his Monograph of the Cirripeds, recognizes three 1 Goode, G. B. Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1887, sect. 5, vol. 2, p. 40. 316 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. living species of the genus Coronula. Pilsbry, in his monograph just issued, has extended our knowledge of these, and has established the fact that two species occur as parasites or commensals on the Atlantic Humpback. Of these C. diadema is the most common, and is found only slightly imbedded in the whale’s skin, particularly on the front edge of the pec- toral flipper, about the anus and flukes. It is known from the North Pacific as well as from the North Atlantic, but not as yet from the South Atlantic. The second species, C. reginae, has a similar range, so far as known. It is found on the lips of the Humpback, where the skin is thin, and here its more flattened shell grows deeply imbedded, so that only the sum- mit is seen. Van Beneden (1890) recorded it from the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The third species, C. complanata, is somewhat like the last. Its only North Atlantic record seems to be that of Pilsbry, based on a specimen in the Paris Museum, from Norway. Attached to the large Coronulae, are often to be found clusters of a second species of bar- nacle, the long-stalked Conchoderma auritum. This species is cosmopolitan, and is not usually attached to the Humpback except in this secondary way. A third species of crustacean, the whale-louse, an aberrant amphipod, is also found cling- ing by its hook-like legs, to the rugosities or between the throat plaits of this whale. It is considered to represent a genus distinct from that found on the North Atlantic Right Whale, and is known as Paracyamus boopis (Liitken). An outline figure of this species, taken from Liitken’s paper, is here shown (text-fig. 12). According to Mérch (1911) the curious crusta- cean Penella is occasionally found attached to the Humpback. No doubt also the small para- sitie copepod Balaenophilus will be found attached to the baleen plates, but I know of no record for it in this species. The internal parasites likewise remain quite unknown, though one or more species of cestodes doubtless are present in the intestinal tract. a LITERATURE. Abel, O. 1908. Die Morphologie der Hiiftbeinrudimente der Cetaceen. Denkschr. K. Akad. Wiss. Wien, math. - nat. K1., vol. 81, p. 1839-195, 56 figs. Allen, J. A. 1869. Catalogue of the mammals of Massachusetts: with a critical revision of the species. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zoél., vol. 1, p. 148-252. 1908. The North Atlantic Right Whale and its near allies. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 24, p. 277-329, pl. 19-24. Andrews, R. C. 1908. Notes upon the external and internal anatomy of Balaena glacialis Bonn. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 24, p. 171-182, text-fig. 1-6. 1909. Observations on the habits of the Finback and Humpback Whales of the eastern North Pacific. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 26, p. 213-226, pl. 30-40. 1909a. Further notes on Eubalaena glacialis (Bonn.). Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 26, p. 273-275, pl. 46-50. 1916. Monographs of the Pacific Cetacea. II.— The Sei Whale (Balaenoptera borealis Lesson). 1. History, habits, external anatomy, osteology, and relationship. Mem. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., new ser., vol. 1, pt. 6, p. 289-388, pl. 29-42, 38 text-figs. Beneden, P. J. van. 1859. Note sur une nouvelle espéce de distome, le géant de sa famille, habitant le foie d’une baleine, nommée Distoma goliath, V. Ben. Bull. Acad. Roy. Belg., Bruxelles, ser. 2, vol. 5, p. 231-233, 1 pl. 1868. Les squelettes de cétacés et les musées qui les renferment. Bull. Acad. Roy. Belg., Bruxelles, ser. 2, vol. 25, p. 88-125. (An attempt to list the preserved specimens of Cetacea.) 1869. Les baleinoptéres du nord de l’Atlantique. Bull. Acad. Roy. Belg., Bruxelles, ser. 2, vol. 27, no. 4, p. 285-291, 1 pl. 1880. [On a Eubalaena killed at Charleston, S. C.] Bull. Acad. Roy. Belg., Bruxelles, ser. 2, vol. 49, p. 313-315. 1885. Sur l’apparition d’une petite gamme de vraies baleines sur les e6tes est des Etats-Unis d’ Amérique. Bull. Acad. Roy. Belg., Bruxelles, ser. 3, vol. 9, p. 212-214. 1886. ~ Histoire naturelle de la baleine des Basques (Balaena biscayensis). Bull. Acad. Roy. Belg., Bruxelles, ser. 3, vol. 38, p. 1-44. ; 1887. Histoire naturelle des balénoptéres. Mém. Couronnés et autres Mém. Acad. Roy. Belg., Bruxelles, vol. 41, p. 1-145. 1890. Une coronule de la baie de Saint-Laurent. Bull. Acad. Roy. Belg., Bruxelles, ser. 3, vol. 20, p. 49-54, 1 pl. Bigelow, H. B. 1914. Explorations in the Gulf of Maine, July and August, 1912, by the U.S. Fisheries schooner Grampus. Oceanography and notes on the plankton. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zodl., vol. 58, p. 29-147, pl. 1-9. Borgstrém, E. 1892. Ueber Echinorhynchus turbinella, brevicollis und porrigens. Bihang till K. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handlingar, vol. 17, part 4, no. 10, 60 pp., 4 pls. Braun, M. 1904. Ueber Wale und ihre Parasiten. Bericht iiber Sitzungen, in Schriften d. Physikalisch-oeconomisch. Ges. KG6nigsberg, vol. 45, p. 71-79. (317) 318 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. Brown, Robert. 1868. Notes on the history and geographical relations of the Cetacea frequenting Davis Strait and Baffin’s Bay. Proce. Zool. Soc. London, 1868, p. 533-556. Buchet, Gaston. 1895. De la baleine des Basques dans les eaux islandaises et de l’aspect des grands cétacés & la mer. Mém. Soe. Zool. de France, vol. 8, p. 229-231, pl. 6-8. Carte, Alexander, and Macalister, Alexander. 1868. On the anatomy of Balacnoptera rostrata. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, 1868, p. 201-261, pl. 4-7. Cocks, A. H. 1887. The finwhale fishery of 1886 on the Lapland coast. Zoologist, ser. 3, vol. 11, p. 207-222. Collett, Robert. 1886. On the external characters of Rudolphi’s Rorqual (Balaenoptera borealis). Proce. Zool. Soe. London, 1886, p. 243-265, pl. 25-26, text-fig. A-G. 1909. A few notes on the whale Balaena glacialis and its capture in recent years in the North Atlantic by Norwegian whalers. Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1909, p. 91-98, pl. 25-27. Cope, E. D. 1865. Note on a species of Hunchback Whale. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1865, p. 178-181. (Description of Megaptera osphyia from Maine.) De Kay, J. E. 1842. Zoology of New-York, or the New-York fauna..... Mammalia. Nat. Hist. of New York, part 1, xv + 146 pp., 33 pls. Delage, Yves. 1885. Histoire du Balaenoptera musculus échoué sur la plage de Langrune. Arch. de Zool. Exp. et Gén., ser. 2, vol. 3 bis, suppl., art. 1, 152 pp., 20 pls. Dubar, F. 1828. Ostéographie de la baleine échouée a l’est du port d’Ostende le 4 novembre 1827; précédée d’une notice sur la découverte et la dissection de ce cétacée. Bruxelles: 64 pp., 13 pls. Dudley, Paul. 1734. An essay upon the natural history of whales,with a particular account of the ambergris, found in the Sperma Ceti whale. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, Abridgement, vol. 7, pt. 3, p. 424-431. See Phil. Trans., 1725, for original paper. Dwight, Thomas. 1872. Description of the whale (Balaenoptera musculus Auct.) in the possession of the Society: with remarks on the classification of Fin Whales. Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 2, p. 203-230, pls. 6, 7, text-fig. 1-11. Egede, Hans. 1745. A description of Greenland. Shewing the natural history, situation, boundaries, and face of that country; ete. (Translated from the Danish.) London: xx + 220 pp., illus. “schricht, D. E. 1849. Zoologisch-anatomisch-physiologische Untersuchungen iiber die nordischen Wallthiere. Leipzig: 4to, xvi + 206 pp., 14 plates. 1860. Mémoire sur les baleines franches du golfe Biseayen. Rev. et Mag. de Zool., ser. 2, vol. 12, p. 227-230. Fabricius, Otho. 1780. Fauna Groenlandica, systematice sistens animalia Groenlandiae occidentalis hactenus indagata, etc. Copenhagen and Leipsic: xvi + 452 pp., 1 pl. 1818. Om Stub-Hvalen, Balaena boops. K. Dansk. Vid.-Selsk. Skrift., vol. 6, p. 63 (not seen). Fenger, F. A. 1913. “Longshore whaling in the Grenadines, Outing Mag., 1913, p. 664-679. LITERATURE. 319 Flower, W. H. 1864. Notes on the skeletons of whales in the principal museums of Holland and Belgium, with descrip- tions of two species apparently new to science. Proc. Zool. Soe. London, 1864, p. 384-420, fig. 1-17, Gasco, F. 1879. Il balenotto catturato nel 1854 a San Sebastiano (Spagna) (Balaena biscayensis, Eschricht) per la prima volta descritto. Ann. Mus. Ciy. Stor. Nat. Genova, vol. 14, p. 573-608. Gervais, Paul. 1864. Cétacés des cdtes francaises de la Meditérranée. Comptes Rendus Acad. Sci. Paris, vol. 59, p. 876-881. 1871. Remarques sur l’anatomie des cétacés de la division des Balénidés tirées de l’examen des piéces relatives & ces animaux qui sont conservées au Muséum. Nouy. Arch. Mus. d’Hist. Nat. Paris, vol. 7, p. 65-146, pl. 3-10. Goodall, T. B. 1913. With the whalers at Durban, and a few notes on the anatomy of the Humpback Whale (Megaptera boops). Zoologist, ser. 4, vol. 17, p. 201-121, pl. 1. Guldberg, G. A. 1885. On the existence of a fourth species of the genus Balaenoptera. Journ. Anat. and Phys., vol. 19, p. 293-302. 1886. Bidrag til Cetaceernes Biologi. Om Forplantningen og Draegtigheden hos de nordatlantiske Bardehvaler. Forhandl. Vid.-Selsk. Christiania for 1886, no. 9, 56 pp. 1887. Zur Biologie der nordatlantischen Finwalarten. Zool. Jahrbiicher, vol. 2, p. 127-174. 1891. Bidrag til ngiere Kundskab om Atlanterhavets Rethval (Hvbalaena biscayensis, Eschricht). For- handl. Vid.-Selsk. Christiania, 1891, no. 8, 14 pp. 1903. Ueber die Wanderungen verschiedener Bartenwale. [1.] Biol. Centralbl., vol. 23, p. 803-816. 1904. Ueber. die Wanderungen verschiedener Bartenwale. {2.] Biol. Centralbl., vol. 24, p. 371-396. 1904a. Die Waltiere des Kénigsspiegels. Zool. Annalen (Wiirzburg), vol. 1, p. 29-40. 1907. Ueber das Verfahren bei Berechnung des Rauminhaltes und Gewichtes der grossen Waltiere. Forhandl. Vid.-Selsk. Christiania for 1907, no. 3, 12 pp. Hamilton, J. E. 1915. Report to the Committee .... appointed to investigate the biological problems incidental to the Belmullet Whaling Station. Rept. 84th Meeting British Assn. Adv. Sci., 1914, p. 125-161, pls. 3, 4, 2 text-figs. 1916. Report, in Report of the Committee .... appointed to investigate the biological problems incidental to the Belmullet Whaling Station. Rept. 85th Meeting British Assn. Ady. Sci., 1915, p. 124— 146, 4 text-figs. Haupt, Paul. 1907. Jonah’s Whale. Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., vol. 47, p. 151-164. Holder, J. B. 1883. The Atlantic Right Whales: A contribution, embracing an examination of I. The exterior char- acters and osteology of a cisarctic Right Whale — male. II. The exterior characters of a cis- aretic Right Whale —female. III. The osteology of a cisarctie Right Whale — sex not known. To which is added a concise resumé of historical mention relating to the present and allied species. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 1, p. 99-137, pl. 10-13. Japha, Arnold. 1905. Ueber den Bau der Haut des Seihwales (Balaenoptera borealis, Lesson). Zool. Anzeiger, vol. 29, p. 442-445. 1911. Die Haare der Waltiere. Zool. Jahrbiicher, Abth. f. Anat., vol. 32, pt. 1, p. 1-43, pl. 1-3, 4 text- figs. 320 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. Knox, Robert. 1833-4. Account of the dissection of a young rorqual, or short whalebone whale, (the Balaena rostrata of Fabricius); with a few observations on the anatomy of the foetal Mysticetus. Proc. Roy. Soe. Edinburgh, vol. 1, p. 63-65. Kiikenthal, Willy. 1893. Vergleichend-anatomische und entwickelungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen an Walthieren. Denkschr. Med.-Nat. Ges. Jena, vol. 3, x + 448 pp., 25 pls., 124 text-figs. Kunze, A. 1912. Ueber die Brustflosse der Wale. Zool. Jahrbiicher, Abt. f. Anat., vol. 32, p. 577-651, pl. 33-35. Lillie, D. 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Scoresby, William. 1820. An account of the Arctic Regions, with a history and description of the northern whale-fishery. Edinburgh: 2 vols., illus. Starbuck, Alexander. 1878. History of the American whale fishery from its earliest inception to the year 1876. Rept. U. S. Commr. Fish and Fisheries for 1875-6, p. 1-768, pl. 1-6. Stevenson, C. H. 1907. Whalebone: its production and utilization. U.S. Bureau Fisheries, doc. no. 626, 12 pp., 3 pls. Struthers, John. 1871. On some points in the anatomy of a Great Fin-Whale (Balacnoptera musculus). Journ. Anat. and Phys., ser. 2, vol. 5, p. 107-125, pls. 6, 7. 1872. On the cervical vertebrae and their articulations in Fin-Whales. Journ. Anat. and Phys., ser. 2, vol. 6, p. 1-55, pls. 1, 2. 1889. Memoir on the anatomy of the Humpback Whale, Megaptera longimana. Reprint of the follow- ing: 1887-9. On some points in the anatomy of a Mcgaptera longimana. Journ. Anat. and Phys., 1887, vol. 22, p. 109-125, pls. 5, 6; 1888, vol. 22, p. 240-282, pl. 10-12; p. 441-460, 629-654; vol. 23, p. 124-163, pl. 6; 1889, vol. 23, p. 308-335, 358-373. 1893. On the rudimentary hind-limb of a Great Fin-Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) in comparison with those of the Humpback Whale and the Greenland Right-Whale. Journ. Anat. and Phys., vol. 27, p. 291-335, pl. 17-20. True, F. W. 1898. On the nomenclature of the whalebone whales of the tenth edition of Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae. Proce. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 21, p. 617-635. 1903. On some photographs of living Finback Whales from Newfoundland. Smithsonian Mise. Coll., vol. 45, p. 91-94, pl. 24-26. 1903a. First record of the Pollack Whale (Balaenoptera borealis) in the western North Atlantic. Science, ; new ser., vol. 17, p. 150. 1904. The whalebone whales of the western North Atlantic compared with those occurring in European waters, with some observations on the species of the North Pacific. Smithsonian Contrib. to Knowl., vol. 33, p. 1-332, pl. 1-50, text-fig. 1-97. 1912. The genera of fossil whalebone whales allied to Balaenoptera. Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 59, no. 6, p. L-8. Turner, William. 1870. An account of the Great Finner Whale (Balaenoptera sibbaldii) stranded at Longniddry. Part 1, The soft parts, Trans. Roy. Soe. Edinburgh, vol. 26, p. 197-251, pl. 5-8, 322 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. Turner, William (continued). 1871. 187la. 1882. 1892. 1905. 1913. 1914. Verrill, A. E 1902. On the so-called two-headed ribs in whales and in man. Journ. Anat. and Phys., vol. 5 (or ser. 2, vol. 4), p. 348-361. On the transverse processes of the seventh cervical vertebra in Balaenoptera sibbaldii. Journ. Anat. and Phys., vol. 5, p. 361-362. (Lower transverse process developed in a foetus.) A specimen of Rudolphi’s Whale (Balaenoptera borealis or laticeps) captured in the Firth of Forth. Journ. Anat. and Phys., vol. 16, p. 471-484. The Lesser Rorqual (Balaenoptera rostrata) in the Scottish seas, with observations on its anatomy. Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, vol. 19, p. 36-75, text-fig. 1-4. On Penella balaenopterae: a crustacean, parasitic on a Finner Whale, Balaecnoptera musculus. Trans. Roy. Soe. Edinburgh, vol. 41, p. 409-434, pl. 1-4. The Right Whale of the North Atlantic, Balaena biscayensis: its skeleton described and compared with that of the Greenland Right Whale, Balaena mysticetus. Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, vol. 48, p. 889-922, pl. 1-3, text-fig. 16-25. The baleen whales of the South Atlantic. Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, vol. 35, p. 11-21, text-fig. 1. The Bermuda Islands. An account of their scenery, climate, productions, physiography, natural history and geology, with sketches of their discovery and early history, and the changes in their flora and fauna due to man. New Haven: Svo, x + 548 pp., illus. (Whales, p. 270-278.) Price list of recent memoirs. 4to. Vol. VIII, No. 1. The Fishes of New England. 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