102 DESTRUCTION OF FISH. 
pose, nor do we know when the whale fishery first commenced. 
It was, however, very actively prosecuted in the Middle Ages, 
and the Discayans seem to haye been particularly successful 
in this as indeed in other branches of nautical industry.* Five 
hundred years ago, whales abounded in every sea. They long 
since became so rare in the Mediterranean as not to afford en- 
couragement for the fishery as a regular occupation; and the 
great demand for oil and whalebone for mechanical and manu- 
facturing purposes, in the present century, has stimulated the 
pursuit of the “ hugest of living creatures” to such activity, that 
he has now almost wholly disappeared from many favorite fish- 
ing grounds, and in others is greatly diminished in numbers. 
later classical writers, specifically applied to true cetaceans, were generally 
much more comprehensive in their signification than the modern word whale. 
This appears abundantly from the enumeration of the marine animals em- 
braced by Oppian under the name k77os, in the first book of the Halieutica. 
There is some confusion in Oppian’s account of the fishery of the kjros in 
the fifth book of the Halieutica. Part of it is probably to be understood of 
cetaceans which have grounded, as some species often do; but in general it 
evidently applies to the taking of large fish—sharks, for example, as appears 
by the description of the teeth—with hook and bait. 
* From the narrative of Ohther, introduced by King Alfred into his transla- 
tion of Orosius, it is clear that the Northmen pursued the whale fishery in the 
ninth century, and it appears, both from the poem called The Whale, in the 
Codex Exoniensis, and from the dialogue with the fisherman in the Colloquies 
of Aelfric, that the Anglo-Saxons followed this dangerous chase at a period 
not much later. Iam not aware of any evidence to show that any of the 
Latin nations engaged in this fishery until a century or two afterward, though 
it may not be easy to disprove their earlier participation in it. In medieval 
literature, Latin and Romance, very frequent mention is made of a species of 
vessel called in Latin baleneria, balenerium, balenerius, balaneria, ete.; in 
Catalan, balener ; in French, balenier ; all of which words occur in many 
other forms. The most obvious etymology of these words would suggest the 
meaning, whaler, baleinier ; but some have supposed that the name was de- 
scriptive of the great size of the ships, and others have referred it to a differ- 
ent root. From the fourteenth century, the word occurs oftener, perhaps, 
in old Catalan, than in any other language ; but Capmany does not notice the 
whale fishery as one of the maritime pursuits of the very enterprising Catalan 
people, nor do I find any of the products of the whale mentioned in the old 
Catalan tariffs. The whalebone of the medieval writers, which is described as 
very white, is doubtless the ivory of the walrus or of the narwhale. 
