8o FOLLOW THE WHALE 



call it "piked" because of its pointed dorsal fin, while the Scandi- 

 navians call it the cod whale, and it is known to North American 

 whalers as the "sharp-nosed finner." 



It grows to a length of only some thirty feet and has a very sharp, 

 narrow snout and a pointed dorsal fin placed rather far forward for 

 a rorqual. In color it is very striking, being a dark gray to bluish 

 black above and ivory white below. Like all the rorquals it has 

 pleats on the throat, but these are extremely numerous and the outer 

 two on either side, together with the lower jaws, are black, in 

 marked contrast to the glistening white throat. The most distinctive 

 feature of this animal, however, is the broad, pure-white band that 

 crosses the upper side of the otherwise black flippers. The baleen is 

 small, only about eight inches long and almost pure white; there are 

 some 320 plates. 



In the summer the little piked whale is found in the polar regions, 

 but in winter it comes south and is a seasonal visitor to Norway, 

 where it assembles in considerable numbers. It enters the Baltic and 

 is occasionally taken in the Mediterranean. In the North Pacific it 

 migrates back and forth through the Bering Strait, and in the polar 

 ice fields it hunts in the channels between the floes, where it has 

 the habit of standing straight upright with its head out of water. 

 It is a fish-eater and likes to travel singly when it will often follow 

 ships for days on end. In coastal shallows it darts along in pursuit of 

 fish where there would not appear to be enough water for it even 

 to float. It has a feeble little spout like that of the calves of bigger 

 species, and it has been observed that it often associates with the 

 larger rorquals. Pebbles have sometimes been found in the stomach 

 of this animal and it has been suggested that they may be used to 

 crush the rather bulky food eaten by these whales, like the stones 

 in a bird's gizzard, for these whales, of course, have no teeth or 

 other masticating device and yet are known to swallow quite large 

 dogfish. Various species of piked whales have been described, but 

 they all seem to be, at most, local races, with the possible exception 

 of one from the coast of India which is known only from skeletons 

 but which appears to be somewhat larger and to have more bones 

 in its neck. 



In Norway, shoals of white-sided dolphins were until quite re- 

 cently also hunted by this same process of herding. On one famous 



