100 DESTETJCTION OF FISH. 



otlier brandies of nautical industry.* Five hundred years ago, 

 wliales abounded in every sea. They long since became so rare 

 in the Mediterranean as not to afford encouragement for the 

 fishery as a regular occupation ; and the great demand for oil and 

 whalebone for mechanical and manufacturing purposes, in the 

 present century, has stimulated the pursuit of the "hugest of 

 Hving creatures " to such activity, that he has now almost wholly 

 disappeared from many favorite fishing grounds, and in others is 

 greatly diminished in numbers. 



What special functions, besides his uses to man, are assigned to 

 the whale in the economy of nature, we do not know ; but some 

 considerations, suggested by the character of the food upon which 

 certain species subsist, deserve to be specially noticed. None of 

 the great mammals grouped under the general name of whale are 

 rapacious. They all hve upon small organisms, and the most nu- 

 merous species feed almost wholly upon the soft, gelatinous mol- 

 lusks in which the sea abounds in all latitudes. "We can not cal- 

 culate even approximately the number of the whales, or the quan- 

 tity of organic nutriment consumed by an individual, and of 

 course we can form no estimate of the total amount of animal 

 matter withdrawn by them, in a given period, from the waters of 

 the sea. It is certain, however, that it must have been enormous 



* From the narrative of Olitlier, 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. I am 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 mediaeval 

 literature, Latin and Romance, very frequent mention is made of a species of 

 vessel called in Latin haleneria, balenerium, balenerius, ialaneria, etc.; 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 mediaeval writers, which is described as 

 verj'' Avhite, is doubtless the ivory of the walrus or of the narwhal. 



