78 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



a boat by himself, and succeeded in striking a second 

 harpoon; but, another boat having advanced too close, 

 the animal brandished most furiously her tail with so 

 much fury that the harpooner, who was directly under, 

 judged it prudent to leap at once into the sea. The tail 

 then struck the very place that he had left, and cut the 

 boat entirely asunder, with the exception of two planks, 

 which were saved by having a coil of ropes laid over 

 them ; so that, had he remained, he must have inevit- 

 ably been dashed to pieces. Happily all the other sea- 

 men escaped injury. However, the results of these 

 accidents are not always so fortunate. The late Aim- 

 well of Whitby, in 1810, lost three men out of seven; 

 and in 1812 the Henrietta, of the same port, lost four 

 out of six, by the upsetting of the boats, the crews being 

 thrown into the sea. 



In 1 809, one of the men belonging to the Resolution, 

 of Whitby, struck a sucking whale; after which the 

 mother, being seen wheeling rapidly round the spot, was 

 eagerly watched. Mr. Scoresby, sen., being on this oc- 

 casion in the capacity of harpooner in another boat, was 

 selecting a situation for the probable re-appearance of 

 the parent whale, when suddenly an invisible blow stove 

 in fifteen feet of the bottom of his boat, which filled 

 with water, and instantly sunk. The crew were saved. 



Another and frequent misfortune is entanglement of 

 the line, during the period the whale is retreating, which 

 is often productive of disastrous consequences. A sailor 

 belonging to the John of Greenock, in 1818, having 

 happened to step into the centre of a coil of running 

 rope, had a foot entirely carried off, and was obliged to 

 have the lower part of the leg amputated. A harpooner 

 belonging to the Henrietta of Whitby, when engaged in 

 lancing a whale into which he had previously struck a 



