3 4 4 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



ventral scarf is made as a series of horizontal and vertical cuts. The scarf begins at the anus and is 

 taken horizontally forwards until a few feet in front of the genital slit, where the direction is changed 

 to proceed vertically upwards for about 2 ft. then again horizontally about the same distance, and then 

 downwards, and again horizontally forwards for some 3 ft., when the marking out of a three-sided 

 square is repeated, bringing the scarf at or near the end of the trunk. The tracing of the cut is such 

 that, when the blubber above the scarf is later removed, there remain two square flaps looking like 

 two merlons with a crenelle between in a battlement of blubber. The dorsal or left-hand side receives 

 similar treatment : the dorsal fin and posterior dorsal humps are removed, like the post-anal ventral 

 hump, in a single thick strip ; afterwards the blubber in front of the former position of the dorsal fin 

 is scarfed so that it will leave two 'merlons' like those on the right-hand or ventral surface. At this 

 stage the tail flukes receive attention : that fluke raised off the platform is cut off close to its insertion, 

 but the other fluke is conveniently left as a prop to the tail until flensing is further advanced. The 

 flenser now resumes work on the trunk, when all the blubber on the top surface, between the dorsal 

 and ventral scarfs, is removed, most of it in 2-ft. squares with spade and blubber hook, as though a 

 stranded whale were being cut in (p. 336 and Plate XVII). The steam winches are not much used in 

 flensing, although a certain amount of the flank blubber is stripped with their assistance. The flipper 

 is removed last : the senior flenser climbs atop the carcass and clears the insertion of the flipper from 

 its remaining surround of blubber and then disarticulates with his spade the joint between humerus 

 and scapula. Flensing at this stage exposes the white connective tissue covering the meat of one side, 

 with the two blubber merlons standing up left and right (Plate XVII). A hole is mortised in the centre 

 of each merlon, for these flaps will later be used to turn over the remains of the carcass. The first meat 

 to be removed is the ventral body-wall, cut with spade and hook from the anus forwards in a series of 

 transverse slabs or belly fillets. This exposes the intestines. Meanwhile the scapula has been severed 

 from its muscular attachments and dragged off the top of the whale. The great fillets of dorsal muscle 

 or back meat between the neural spines and the transverse processes, are stripped away with the winch 

 as in steam whaling practice elsewhere. In the Azores the winches find more employment in stripping 

 meat and disjointing the skeleton than in flensing the blubber. With the back meat removed, the 

 thoracic cavity is exposed by removal of the ribs, after disarticulation at the thoracic vertebrae with 

 thrusts of the spade. The ribs are dragged out in pairs on a strop from the winch. This completes the 

 work on one side. The carcass is turned over with wires through fairleads left and right to large wooden 

 toggles on the paired blubber merlons of either side, with one wire above the carcass and one below. 

 Working up can now proceed more quickly, for the carcass is much reduced in height and splayed across 

 the platform. The blubber of the former underside now lies on top and is cut out in the usual 2-ft. 

 squares. The flipper goes with the blubber. The belly meat and back meat are stripped away, the 

 scapula removed, and the second side of ribs cut out piecemeal like the first. All that remain are 

 the intact vertebral column, stripped to the bone, and the mass of thoracic and abdominal viscera. 

 With a wire round a fairlead the visceral mass is dragged and slithered down the slipway, whence a 

 motor tow-boat will eventually remove it to the open sea. Neither the liver nor other parts of the 

 viscera were processed at Porto Pirn in 1949. The vertebral column is completely reduced by the freeing 

 of each vertebra in turn with the spade. 



Work on the head is the one part of the factory operations reserved for the whaleboatmen who come 

 from their boat stations especially for this duty. The custom must derive from the whaleship days when 

 bailing the case and cutting junk were jobs for the boatsteerers. The mass of tissue in the head makes 

 dissection an arduous task: a whale measuring 55 ft. (16-8 m.) has a head about 20 ft. long and nearly 

 9 ft. high. With the head lying on its side the blubber and tissues between the rami of the lower jaw 

 are first removed : these tissues include the tongue and hyoid apparatus. Next the mandibular muscles 



