28 THE WHALES AND PORPOISES. 



has on its back a very small dorsal fin. Being very mnch elongated, it is a swift runner and hurries 

 through the water with a velocity so great that the whaleman cannot kill them in the same way 

 that they take the other species. I have never seen it dead and know but little about it." 1 



14. THE FINBACK WHALES. 



DISTRIBUTION. The Finback Whales of the Atlantic, Sibbaldius tectirostris Cope, and <S'. 

 tuberosus Cope, are closely related to the sulphur-bottoms. The former is the most common of 

 the larger cetaceans in Massachusetts Bay, and half a dozen or more may be seen in an afternoon's 

 cruise any sunuy afternoon of summer. They become abundant in the Gulf of Maine soon after 

 the beginning of April. They swim near the surface, often exposing the back for half its length, 

 and I have several times seen them rise within fifty feet of the yacht on which I stood. Septem- 

 ber 12, 1879, four were swimming and spouting in Provincetown Harbor. 



The skeleton obtained by the Fish Commission in 1875 (No. 16045, U. S. N. M.) belongs to 

 the species whose name heads this paragraph. The Museum of Comparative Zoology also has a 

 specimen, taken at Proviucetown, forty-seven feet long, which yielded eighty barrels and fourteen 

 gallons of oil. 



MOVEMENTS. Captain Atwood tells us that Finbacks are rapid swimmers and are not often 

 attacked by the whalers. They "run" so hard that the boats "cannot tow to them," and it is 

 impossible to get up to them to lance them. They sometimes strand on the shore, and of late years 

 a few are occasionally killed with a bomb-lance in the spring. One was lanced one autumn, about 

 the year 1868, by boats pursuing blackfish. It was sixty feet long, and made about twenty barrels 

 of oil. The "bone" is shorter than that of the humpback, and is of little value. 2 When lanced, 

 not being oily enough to float at once, they sink and remain at the bottom for a few days, during 

 which time much of the blubber is eaten off by sharks. They yield very little oil. 



ABUNDANCE IN NEW ENGLAND. Two ran ashore some years ago in Proviucetown Harbor, 

 one of which yielded fourteen, the other twenty barrels of oil. One killed at Proviucetowu, though 

 fifty-four feet long and a good fat whale of its kind, yielded only twenty barrels of oil. 3 



THE DUBERTUS. An interesting question regarding the name by which this whale was 

 known in the early days of the American colonies has recently been discussed. 



The charter of Ehode Island and Providence Plantations, granted in 1663 by Obarles II, 

 provides, among more important rights and privileges: 



"And ffurtker, for the encouragement of the inhabitants of our sayd collony of Providence 

 Plantations to sett upon the busiuesse of takeing whales, itt shall bee lawefull ffor them, or any 

 of them, having struck whale, DUBERTUS or other greate ffish, itt or them to pursue unto any parte 

 of that coaste, and into any bay, river, cove, creeke or shoare belonging thereto, and itt or them 

 upon the sayd coaste, or in the sayd bay, cove, creeke or shoare belonging thereto, to kill and order 

 to the best advantage, without molestation, they makeiug noe wilfull waste or spoyle, anything 

 in these presents couteyued, or any other matter or thing, to the contrary notwithstanding." 



1 Bulletin Museum Comparative Zoology, vol. viii, p. 204. 



-'A large Finback Whale, forty feet in length, got aground on the flats near the light-house at WelJfleet, ou 

 Wednesday, by the fall of the, tide, and ho was killed by cutting a hole in him and theu using an oar as a spado. 

 Wlirn the tide is out people can walk around the whale. Semi-Weekly Advertiser, Boston, February, 27, 1872. 



On the 2d of May, 1828, a whale, was east ashore at Whale Reach, Swampscott, measuring sixty feet iu length, and 

 twenty-live barrels of oil were extracted from it. LEWIS & NEWHALL: History of Lynn, p. 391. 



17f>5. A whale, seventy-five feet in length, was landed on King's Reach, on the 9th of December. Dr. Henry 

 Burc.hstod rode into its mouth, iu a chaise drawn by a horse ; and afterwards had two of his bones set up for gate- 

 posts at his house in Essex street, where they stood for more than fifty years. [Opposite the doctor's house, the cot 

 of Moll 1'i tcher, the celebrated fortune-teller, stood. And many were the sly inquiries from strangers for the place 

 whens the big whale-bones were to be seen.] Ibid., p. 330. 



3 Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, vol. viii, p. 204, and iu letters. 



