NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. L31 



twenty four to twenty eight Barrels. After this they are termed Scull-[School-] fish, their 

 Age not being known, but only guessed at by the Length of the Bone in their Mouths." From 

 this it is apparent that the whalemen believed the young accompanies its mother for at least 

 a year, and is weaned when between one and two years old. A single young is commonly 

 produced at a birth. 



Parental Care. — The attachment of the cow whales for their young is attested by the 

 whalers, who generally fasten to the calf first, for the mother will not desert it, and so both are 

 often killed. 



Such was the case with the Right Whale encountered off Cape Cod about the first of June, 

 1888, whose calf was first harpooned and killed, while the cow, refusing to leave her offspring, 

 circled around and around until she succumbed after nine bomb-lances had been shot at her 

 (Nantucket Journal, vol. 10, no. 36, June 7, 1888). Precisely similar were the actions of a 

 Right Whale, which with her young calf, was pursued off the Spanish coast in the Bay of San 

 Sebastiano in January, 1854. The young whale was killed and towed into the bay, followed 

 by its mother, who in her distress circled about the whalers, and even attempted to rescue her 

 offspring by clasping it with the pectoral flipper and trying to drag it away. Finally with a 

 blow of her flukes she broke the lines and, according to the account, succeeded in carrying 

 off her calf. It was picked up next day, however, by a passing vessel and brought back to the 

 harbor, still followed by the old whale. This calf measured but 7.56 meters (24 ft. 9 inches) 

 and no doubt was of tender age. 



Occurrence in New England Waters. 



Former Abundance. — At the time of the settlement of New England, and for nearly a 

 century thereafter. Right Whales were present in considerable numbers in the shallow waters 

 of the southeastern coast during the late fall, winter, and spring. How abundant they were 

 at this time it is difficult now to estimate. In Cape Cod Bay, the voyagers on the Mayflower, 

 in December, 1620, found them daily "playing hard by." Higgeson of Ipswich, in 1629, tells 

 of the "great store of whales, and crampusse." Other writers of the period give similar expres- 

 sions of their numbers. At the close of the seventeenth century, after nearly seventy-five years 

 of relentless persecution they must have become much less common. Yet, on January 27, 1700, 

 Wait Winthrop' of Boston, writes to his brother Fitz-John, that "the winter hath bin so favorable 

 that they haue killed many whales in Cape Cod bay ; all the boates round the bay killed twenty 

 nine whales in one day, as som that came this week report; as I came by when I was there 

 last, one company had killed thre, two of which lay on Sandwich beach, which they kild the 

 day before, and reckned they had kild another the same day, which they expected would driue 



1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1892, ser. 6, vol. 5, p. 55. 



