HABITS. 559 



bable that the monster was provoked by the ship having acci- 

 dentally come into contact with it. Whaling is the finest 

 sport known to man. It requires great skill and knowledge, 

 and all the strongest qualities of human nature. Indeed, other 

 sports may be called child's play as compared with it. It is 

 generally carried on in the wildest and most terrible places of 

 the earth, and the quarry is by far the largest and most powerful 

 of animals now living, and the most profitable to capture. A 

 fine whale of the " right " kind will yield upwards of three 

 hundred barrels of oil and considerably over a ton of whalebone.* 

 So inveterately have some of these animals been pursued that 

 they appear to be on the verge of extinction. The Atlantic 

 right-whale has entirely forsaken its former grounds, the black 

 whales of the southern temperate ocean have been almost entirely 

 exterminated ; and Captain Scammon saj's of the Californian 

 grey whale that " ere long it may be questioned whether this 

 mammal will not be numbered among the extinct species of the 

 Pacific." As an illustration of the same fact, it may be men- 

 tioned that between the years 1788 and 1879, 4,195 Greenland 

 whales were brought into Peterhead, while in 1891 only 17 

 whales were captured, and a few years ago the catch by Dundee 

 whalers was only six. 



The period of gestation is not certainly known, but in the 

 case of the larger species it is stated by Scammon to be from 

 nine to twelve months. Coition is probably effected with the 

 animals lying breast to breast, either horizontally on the sur- 

 face of the sea or in a vertical position. Their amatory antics, 

 which have sometimes been observed, are highly entertaining. 

 " Their caresses are of the most amusing and novel character. 

 When lying by the side of each other, the megapteras frequently 

 administer alternate blows with their long fins, which love-pats 

 may, on a stiU day, be heard at a distance of miles. They also 

 rub each other with these same huge and flexible arms, rolling 

 occasionally from side to side and indulging in other gambols, 

 which can easier be imagined than described." | They are 

 found in all seas, and their fossils occur in the Tertiary 



* The price of whalebone varies considerably. At the beginning of 

 the fifteenth century it was about £150 a ton ; in 1891 whalebone of good 

 quality brought £2,800 a ton. 



f Scamnion, op. cit., p. 45. The same authority has estimated their 

 duration of life at from thirty to a hundred years. 



