IX.-THE BOTTLE-NOSE WHALE FISHERY IN THE NORTH AT- 

 LANTIC OCEAN.* 



By Thomas Southwell, F. Z. S. 



Jn the early days of the whale fishery, when the Arctic right whales 

 which frequented the seas oft" the coast of Spitzbergeu, or Greenland, 

 as it was then called, were so plentiful and easy of approach that they 

 only required to be killed, there was very little skill in whaling, and 

 the whalemen of those pleasant times doubtless regarded with contempt 

 the smaller Cetaceans which so often now go to make up a cargo. In 

 1697, one hundred and eighty-eight vessels killed one thousand nine 

 hundred and fifty-nine whales, and as the " fish" were at that time found 

 close to the shore, the practice was to land the blubber and try it out 

 on the island, carriers beiug employed to take home the oil that the 

 vessels might not be delayed in their profitable occupation. 



This happy state of things of course did not long continue ; the 

 whales were soon all killed or scared away, and had to be followed far- 

 ther afield and more skillfully approached; a like process of exhaustion 

 subsequently brought to a close the shore fishery from the west coast of 

 Greenland, where the whales were killed from the shore as they passed 

 the Danish settlements on their northward migration in the spring. 

 There is no reason to believe that the Greenland right whale ever oc- 

 curred much farther south than our early whalemen found it, and its 

 disa})pearauce from some of its former localities and greater scarcity in 

 its present habitats is probably due to actual extermination, and per- 

 haps in some degree to timidity induced by unremitted persecution, 

 more particularly since the introduction of steam. In the palmy days 

 of the fishery from Peterhead twenty or thirty whales was no uncom- 

 mon result for one vessel, and in 1814 seven vessels brought home one 

 hundred and sixty-three whales. Captain Suttart, of the Eesolution, 

 leading the list with forty-four fish. This, it must be remembered, was 

 before the introduction of steam, the advantage of which in ice naviga- 

 tion is incalculable. The years 1830 and 1831 were exceedingly unpro- 

 ductive, so much so that in those two seasons sixteen vessels killed 

 only forty-eight whales, yielding 548 tons of oil, notwithstanding which 

 in the thirteen years, 1821 to 1833, inclusive, one hundred and fifteen 

 voyages by sailing vessels from the port of Peterhead to Davis Straits, 

 l^roduced 12,862 tons of whale oil, equal to 112 tons per voyage, and 



* The bottle-nose whale, Hyperoodon rostratus, having several times of late been 

 captured on the Atlantic coast of the United States, the following observations by 

 Mr. Southall are of much interest. 



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