fiG THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



whether the latter was not the most important establish- 

 ment. 



EARLY HISTORY OF THE BRITISH WHALE-FISHERY. 



From the narrative of the voyage of Ohthere the 

 Dane, given by King Alfred, in his Saxon translation of 

 Orosius, it would appear that the pursuit of the whale 

 was practised by the people of Norway at least as early 

 as the ninth century. Other northern authorities bear 

 testimony to the same fact. Of the manner, however, in 

 which the whale-fishery was carried on at this remote 

 era, we know nothing. It probably was not pursued on 

 any systematic plan, but merely in the way of occasional 

 encounters, as the hunting of wild animals on land 

 would be practised in the same state of society. The 

 inhabitants of the coasts surrounding the Bay of Biscay 

 seem to have been the first who engaged in whale- 

 fishing with a view to commercial purposes. They are, 

 therefore, properly to be considered the originators of 

 the pursuit as a branch of national enterprise. Their 

 prosecution of it in the adjacent seas can be traced back 

 as far as the twelfth century. The animal against which 

 they directed their attacks, however, was most probably 

 of a different species from that found in the Northern 

 Ocean, and of a much smaller size. It seems to have 

 been captured principally, if not exclusively, for the sake 

 of its flesh, which was in those days esteemed as an 

 article of food, the tongue especially being accounted a 

 great delicacy. 



By degrees, however, the number of whales that re- 

 sorted to the Bay of Biscay diminished, and at length 

 the whales altogether ceased to visit that sea. In these 

 circumstances the Biscayan mariners carried the naviga- 

 tion farther and farther from their own shores, till at 



