NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 133 



relates that "every day we saw whales playing hard by us; of which in that place, if we had 

 instruments and means to take them, we might have made a very rich return, which to our 

 great grief we wanted. Our master and his mate, and others, experienced in fishing, professed 

 we might have made three or four thousand pounds worth of oil. They preferred it before 

 Greenland whale-fishing, and purpose the next winter to fish for whale here." ' This was 

 off the present-day Truro. It is significant that there were on board the Mayflower, persons 

 "experienced in [whale] fishing," who at once saw that these whales that daily came about the 

 vessel, were of the sort that yielded profit in oil and whalebone — hence, Right Whales. No 

 doubt the men "preferred it before Greenland whale-fishing" because of the less hardshiji 

 involved. Possibly also the fact that they intended "the next winter to fish for whale here" 

 may indicate that they were aware that the Right Whale left the coast in the warm season. 



1635.— John Winthrop in his History of New England from 1630 to 1649 (1825, vol. 1, 

 p. 157) mentions that in April of this year three or four whales were cast ashore on Cape Cod, 

 a thing which, he says, happens "almost every year." That these were large whales, and 

 probably Right Whales, is indicated by the fact that several of the Massachusetts Bay colonists 

 sailed across the Bay to try out the oil. 



1668. — An old journal, kept by the Rev. Simon Bradstreet, mentions the capture of a 

 whale, doubtless of this species, in Boston Harbor, "below the Castle" in the month of October 

 (New Eng. Hist, and Geneal. Record, 1855, vol. 9, p. 44). 



1697. — The good Cotton Mather in this year makes mention of a cow whale with its calf, 

 captured at Yarmouth, Mass. "The cow was 55 feet long: the bone was 9 or 10 in. wide; a 

 cart upon wheels might have gone into the mouth of it. The calf was 20 ft. long, for unto such 

 vast calves the sea-monsters draw forth their breasts. But so does the good God here give 

 this people to suck the abundance of the seas." 



1703. — About the middle of February, three "great whales, betwixt six and seven and 

 eight foot bone" were killed or wounded in the waters about Martha's Vineyard, and the wounds 

 and the marks of the harpoons are recorded by the Clerk of Edgartown (Starbuck, 1878, p. 35). 



1706. — Under date of December 10th, John Higginson of Salem writes to Symond Epes 

 of Ipswich concerning "a rumor of several whales, that are gotten" (J. B. Felt: History of 

 Ipswich, Essex, and Hamilton, 1834, p. 109). Probably this refers to Right Whales killed in 

 Ipswich Bay. 



1707. — Starbuck (1878, p. 34) mentions that the Boston papers of December 12th, recount 

 the pursuit and capture of a whale 40 feet long in Boston Harbor, near the back of Noddle's 

 Island. Probably, from the size, and the fact that it was pursued and killed, it was a Right 

 Whale. 



'A Relation or Journal of a Plantation settled at Plymouth in New England, and Proceedings thereof: etc. Coll. 

 Mass. Hist. Soc, 1802, ser. 1, vol. 8, p. 204. 



