COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 197 



coarse twine was unable to obtain a full supply of air, and exhausted by its long fight for liberty 

 [and air], died at last, to the deUght of the lone fisherman, who, with clothing saturated and 

 dory deluged with water from the struggle, lost no time in clearing the net from the great 

 animal which then sank from sight." Possibly the whale did not see the net at night, and 

 so did not avoid it. 



The same journal prints an item concerning a 60-foot whale (and hence doubtless a Fin- 

 back) that "burst violently into the floating trap of a Provincetown fisherman" in early July, 

 1908. The whale caused considerable damage to the net but eventually freed itself and 

 escaped (Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, vol. 89, no. 2, July 11, 1908). 



A similar instance is reported by H. F. Moore (Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish and Fisheries for 

 1896, 1898, vol. 22, p. 404) who says that Finback Whales in pursuing herring in Passama- 

 quoddy Bay, Maine "sometimes enter the weirs and are killed, but occasionally the result is 

 disastrous to the weir, a fine one at Grand Manan being almost ruined by a whale in September, 

 1893." 



A number of cases are on record in which vessels have l)cen in collision with whales, 

 usually to the greater damage of the latter. The Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror (vol. 65, 

 no. 48, May 30, 1885) gives an account of such an accident that befell the pilot boat Alexander 

 M. Laiurence, No. Jf-, when some twenty miles east of Nantucket. The vessel was proceeding 

 at about thirteen knots an hour, when it suddenly collided with a large whale, which struck 

 it on the port bow. The Lmm-ence dipped until the water nearly reached her hatches and 

 seemed in such imminent danger of capsizing that those below immediately rushed on deck. 

 Looking back, they saw the whale rolling about as if in distress, but the vessel sustained no 

 injury. No indication of the species of whale is given but it was most likely a Finback or 

 Humpback. 



A dead Finback Whale "about forty feet long, drifted ashore on the south side of Tucker- 

 nuck" about the 20th of June, 1904, which was thought to have been "one of those with which 

 schooner Adelia T. Carleton was in collision" the week previous (Nantucket Inquirer and Mir- 

 ror, vol. 84, no. 52, June 25, 1904). 



The same journal relates that the steamer Admiral Sampson in mid-June, 1906, while 

 proceeding through a fog off Chaiham, Mass., came suddenly upon a whale that had risen to 

 blow"directly in the vessel's track. The chief officer grasped the whistle cord and gave a sharp 

 blast, while the whale at once dove just in time to escape being cut in two by the sharp prow 

 of the steamer. "Its huge body was just grazed by the starboard side of the vessel and it 

 came up almost immediately astern and followed along for some distance as though bent on 

 revenge" (Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, vol. 86, no. 22, June 16, 1906). 



Another instance is reported by Captain von Leitner of the steamship Graecian, a few 

 summers ago. On July 28th, when two days out from New York, liound for the West Indies, 



