130 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



cow with her calf, was unsuccessfully pursued about the last of March, 1884. Off Cape 

 Cod, in the first week of June, 1888, a cow and calf were found together and both were killed 

 with bomb-lances. Other instances might be multiplied of the occurrence of Right Whales 

 with calves in the spring months on our coast. Unfortunately there are few data available 

 as to the size of the smallest of these calves. That mentioned by Cotton Mather as but 20 

 feet in length must have been very young indeed, perhaps but recently born. The only 

 instance I have found of the capture of a gravid Right Whale on the east coast of the United 

 States, is that recorded by Dr. G. E. Manigault,' who says that "a female, ready to give birth 

 to her young, was secured ofT the harbor of Port Royal, S[outh] C[arolina] in February, 1884, 

 and towed inside, when the operation of cutting up was done at leisure. This specimen was 

 about sixty feet in length, and, although I did not visit it, I feel certain, from descriptions, that 

 it was a B. biscayensis. The calf, upon measurement, proved to be 20 feet in length." The 

 latter measurement corresponds closely with that recorded by Mather for the calf killed at 

 Cape Cod (see above). 



The evidence seems to show that in case of the Right Whale, copulation probably takes 

 place in summer. Adults with foetuses from one to one and a half meters long are taken in the 

 Iceland Seas in summer. The young are born in winter (January and February) while the 

 whales are in the warmer waters to the south, and appear in spring with their mothers on the 

 New England coasts. Probably the majority of those born on this side of the Atlantic are 

 brought forth south of New England. The length of the new born whale is probably al^out 

 twenty feet. Collett (1909) notes that the smallest of these whales killed during the summer 

 in the Iceland seas were 31, 36, and 37 feet long respectively (9.45, 10.9, and 11.2 meters). It 

 can be merely conjecture whether these are young less than a year old. The young one recorded 

 by Andrews (1909a) from Long Island in December, 1908, was but 27 feet 9| inches long and 

 so perhaps a young of the preceding spring on its first journey south. It is certain, how- 

 ever, that small whales up to forty feet, probably born at least a year earlier, are found off our 

 shores in spring, sometimes accompanying a pair of larger whales. Such a one (40 feet 3 inches 

 long) is that described by R. C. Andrews (1908) as captured at Wainscott, Long Island, N. Y., 

 on February 22, 1907, accompanied by an adult female 54 feet long. Probably the young 

 may accompany their parents for a year or longer. Paul Dudley, whose classic account of 

 the whales of New England, prepared in 1725, seems to be founded largely on accurate observa- 

 tions, says : "This Fish, when first brought forth, is about twenty Feet long, and of Uttle Worth, 

 but then the Dam is very fat. At a Year old, when they are called Short-heads, they are very 

 fat, and yield to fifty Barrels of Oil, but by that time the Dam is very poor, and termed a 

 Dry-skin, and will not yield more than thirty Barrels of Oil, tho' of large Bulk. At two Years 

 old, they are called Stunts, being stunted after weaning, and will then yield generally from 



1 Manigault, G. E. Proc. Elliott Society, Charleston, S. C, 1SS6, vol. 2, p. 104. 



