RIGHT WHALES 215 



included in their coats of arms, and old documents and place- 

 names testify to the importance of whaling to these people. 

 Some of the names used in connection with whaling, even at 

 the present time, can be traced back to this Basque fishery, 

 and the commonest one of all, " harpoon ", we are told, is 

 derived from the Basque " arpoi ", of which the root is " ar ", 

 meaning to take quickly. 



When compared with the scale of modern whaling the 

 Basque fishery was a small and insignificant one. Sir Sidney 

 Harmer has calculated from Markham's records that the total 

 catch of twenty villages for the hundred years commencing 15 17 

 was somewhere in the neighbourhood of 700 to 1000 — a contrast 

 to the annual slaughter of about 30,000 Blue and Fin Whales 

 at the present time. Yet even the modest proportions of 

 the Basque fishery were harmful to the stock. The whales, 

 which habitually visited inshore waters in that region in the 

 winter and early spring months, ceased to do so, and, about the 

 middle of the seventeenth century, they became so scarce 

 that long voyages had to be undertaken in their pursuit. 

 Even in the sixteenth century the Basque whaling ships had 

 reached Newfoundland and, in the first English voyage to 

 Spitzbergen early in the seventeenth century, it is interesting 

 to note that Basque whaling men were employed ; for at 

 that time, according to Sir Clements Markham, they had 

 monopolized all the experience and skill which then existed in 

 connection with the craft and mystery of whale fishing. 



Other foci of the North Atlantic Right Whale fishery were 

 on the New England coast, off Iceland and to the north of 

 Norway. Each had a more or less prolonged period of 

 abundance, and each in turn had to be abandoned because 

 of the ultimate insufficiency of the catch, until at last there 

 came a time when it was believed that the North Atlantic 

 Right Whale was extinct. It began to appear, however, .it 

 is true in very small numbers, in the second half of the 

 nineteenth century, and small catches were made from some 

 of those areas where it had once been so plentiful. 



In the southern hemisphere the southern variety of Black 

 Right Whale was very abundant 150 years ago. The whalers 

 in search of Sperm Whales, seeing this other species, recognized 

 that here was a fruitful source of supply of oil. Soon every 



