138 A BOOK OF WHALES 



references to the literature, have been collected by 

 M. Fischer in the memoir just referred to, and at 

 nearly the same time by Mr. (now Sir Clements) 

 Markham.* It would seem that they were fished 

 upon the shores of Flanders so long ago as the year 

 875, but in these remote periods it is by no means 

 always certain that whale is meant by the descriptive 

 expressions used. Even Balcena itself does not 

 always apply in these early records to the whale- 

 bone whale, and the term " crassus piscis" is clearly 

 even more vague in its possible significances. We 

 learn that in old times the habits and customs of 

 the Basques resembled those of their not very 

 distant neighbours, the Normans. They lived along 

 the shores, and, as a rule, picked up a living there. 

 When the fishery was not productive they occupied 

 themselves in pillaging inland. The whales were 

 attacked when they approached the shore to bear 

 their young ; they were driven on to the shore and 

 despatched there. The earliest document relative 

 to this fishery is dated from the year 1150. It is 

 in the shape of privileges granted by Sancho the 

 Wise to the city of San Sebastian. A little later, 

 in 1197, John Lackland, King of England, "gave 

 to Vital de Biole and his heirs to take fifty Angevin 

 pounds on the two first whales captured each year 

 at Biarritz in exchange for the fees which King 

 Richard his brother had given him on account of the 

 fishery of Guernsey." The pursuit of the Biscayan 



fr " On the Whale Fishery of the Basque Provinces of Spain," Proc. 

 Zool. Soc., 1 88 1, p. 969. 



