wliicli sunk to tli(> ImiII(iiii. w licic llic \v;ilcr was li\c f:il lioiiis dct'i). iMiriii;; 

 the strufiKlo llio uiodicr Itcc.-mu' iic.iriy cxIliiisIccI. liaving rocoived soveral 

 deep wounds about the throat and linihs. As sodii as their prize liad set- 

 tled to the l)()(t()ni tlie three Orcas descended. hrinKinj; up hxrge pieces of 

 tlesh in their nKnitlis. wliich they devoured after coming to the surface." 



Tlie common poriioise is a gregarious wliale found in ])olli tlie Atlantic 

 and l»acific. It reaches a length of tive to six feet and is generally blackish, 

 but white on the belly. Like the stormy petrel they hav(> the reputation of 

 presaging foul weather, when they sport and chase one anntlnT ajpuul 

 vessels, an instance of which I witnessed in Lynn Canal. 



It seems to be hanlly a matter of doubt that whales were first utilized 

 only when stranded on shore. The discovery thus made of the economic 

 value of many parts of these huge monsters led naturally to their pur- 

 suit, either from the shore or open sea. As to the actual date of the first 

 active hunting of them there is dispute, the real date of the origin of this 

 pursuit being difiicult to ascertain. Hakluyt thinks it was practiced on the 

 Norway coast as early as A. D. 890. In the first place it probably was 

 practiced from the shore. Beddard says, "Xo doubt as soon as the value 

 of stranded whales was ascertained they would be hunted in this fashion, 

 and then as the shore-coming whales got scarcer they would be pursued 

 by the whalers further and further into the ocean". The American whale 

 fishing began as early as the year 1614. At first the animals were pursued 

 from the shore; and Nantucket Island was the headquarters of the industry. 

 The whales were watched for from a "tall spar", and when an animal was 

 seen to spout the boats immediately set out in pursuit. The whale when 

 captured was towed into shore, and the flensing done on the beach. 

 Verrill says that, at that time no ships had set forth in quest of whales 

 and the whalemen depended upon those which could be captured from small 

 boats and it was not until 1088 that the first whaleship set forth on a true 

 whaling cruise. AVithin a dozen years the sails of the sloops, brigs and 

 schooners from Nantucket and other Massachusetts towns were spread to 

 the winds of the Atlantic from the Equator to the Arctic Circle. 



Never very abundant, the right whales, that is the Ai'ctic right, or 

 Greenland whale, and the North .\tlantic whale, of which the oil served to 

 light the way of our ancestors and the whalebone to give shapely fonn to 

 (he women, have become very rare. In our time the Greenland whale is not 

 rcgidarly hunted except in Davis and Lancaster Straits. Hudson Bay. on 

 tlie Northwest Coast of North America about Point Barrow. Even in 

 those places it is no longer abundant. The second species of right whale, the 

 Ncn-th Atlantic right whale is ;it present scarcely move abundant than the 

 Greenland whale. In cdiitrast witli the foregoing, finbacks and Humpbacks 

 abound in all seas, sudi as the blue whale, tlie r<pr(|nals. the pollack whale, 

 the conunou hunipi)a(k. and many diher less well-known species. The 

 cetaceans are at present relentlessly pursued for connnercial puriKises. 



The finback whale fishery began in lS(i7. when the celebrated Norwegian 

 sailor. Svend Feyii with his destructive machine captured his first whale, 

 and in the tirst year took thirty of them. In less (ban lifteen years this 



