COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 207 



strength and swiftness the hardy adventurers were unsuccessful in their attempts to capture 

 any (Capt. John Smith: A Description of New England. London, 1610; reprint in Coll., 

 Mass. Hist. Soc, 1837, ser. 3, vol. 6, p. 103). 



1629. — An early reference quoted by True (1904, p. 22) makes a brief mention of whales, 

 probably Finbacks or Humpbacks, seen in the Gulf of Maine, a day's voyage to the southeast 

 of Cape Sable, and within sight of the Maine coast. "Thursday [25th June] wind still N. E. 

 a full and fresh gale. In the afternoon we had a cleare sight of many islands and hills by the 

 sea shoare. Now we saw abundance of mackrill, a great store of great whales puffing up water 

 as they goe, some of them came neere our shipp; this creature did astonish us that saw them 

 not before; their back appeared like a little island" (A True Relation of the last Voyage to New 

 England, begun the 25th of April, 1629, written from New England, July 24, 1629. Hutchin- 

 son's Coll. Orig. Papers on Hist. Mass. Bay, 1769). Shortly after the same writer mentions 

 again "huge whales going by companies and puffing up water-streames" (ibid., p. 46). No 

 doubt these whales, in large schools, were Finbacks following shoals of small fish with the 

 mackerel. 



1719. — A Finback Whale is reported washed ashore at Nantasket, Mass., the last of 

 February (Boston Gazette, Feb. 28, 1719). 



1808. — "Off the Brimbles, a whale, sixty feet long [and so a Finback?], is found dead, 

 l)y some men from Marblehead. They towed it to Salem neck. It was visited by many from 

 this place, till carried to Boston " (J. B. Felt: Annals of Salem, 1845, ed. 2, vol. 2, p. 95). 



1828. — In this year, apparently, "a whale was brought on shore at Whale Beach, Swamp- 

 scott, on the second of May. It was sixty feet in length, and twenty-five barrels of oil were 

 extracted from it" (A. Lewis: History of Lynn, 1829, p. 236). From its length (60 feet) it 

 seems probable that this was a Finback. 



1833. — What may have been a small Finback, forty feet in length, was picked up at 

 sea and towed into Gloucester Harbor about the last of July (Nantucket Inquirer, July 31, 

 1833). 



A large Finback was seen off Whitehead Light, Maine, by the schooner Experiment bound 

 from Salem to Northport, Maine, in early August. "The whale ran upon the rocks near the 

 light, and after floundering some time, slipped off and came close to the schooner, evidently 

 not a little agitated, throwing himself out of the water as he approached, and giving the vessel 

 a sensible shock" (Nantucket Inquirer, Aug. 10, 1833). 



From a Haverhill paper comes the report of three whales seen in Massachusetts Bay in 

 the first half of August — a large one and two smaller ones. According to Capt. Ezra Smith, 

 who made the report, the large whale was estimated at some 70 feet in length (Nantucket 

 Inquirer, Aug. 21, 1833). Probably they were Finbacks. 



1834. — An item in the New Haven Herald of about the 5th of May gives an account 



