LITTLE PIKED WHALE. 275 



as Spitzbergen, following the open water. Scoresby (1820, vol. 1, p. 486) records a specimen 

 killed there in 1813, the whalebone of which was "of a yellowish white colour, and semi-trans- 

 parent, almost hke lantern-horns." It is occasionally stranded on the shores of the British 

 Isles, and on the French coast of the Bay of Biscay. Rarely it enters the Mediterranean Sea. 

 A skeleton is preserved at Bologne said to belong to an individual killed in the Adriatic, and 

 there are other Mediterranean records. The presence of this whale in the intertropical seas 

 has not apparently been reported. A similar whale occurs, however, in the Southern Ocean 

 and has been distinguished as B. huttoni, and another name, B. davidsoni, has been applied to 

 whales of this type occurring in the North Pacific. Though the ranges of these three whales 

 appear to be separated, their characters are not well ascertained and it is still uncertain whether 

 the distinctions are truly of specific value. So far as observations show, it is distinctively a 

 shore-frequenting whale, and seems to avoid the high seas. 



Occurrence in New England Waters. 



In his great work on the whalebone whales of the western North Atlantic, True (1904, 

 pp. 193, 195) was able to adduce notes on but five individuals of this whale from this side of 

 the ocean, and these all appertain to specimens taken within the New England limits. Yet it is 

 probable that the species is rather more common than these few instances would imply. Indeed 

 I have been able to increase this number considerably. The Little Piked Whale is not unknown 

 to our fishermen, who either distinguish it as 'Grampus Whale' or regard it as merely a "young 

 Finback." The former term is rightly apphed to this species by Dr. J. A. Allen in his mammals 

 of Massachusetts (18G9), in quoting some general notes supplied by Capt. Nathan E. Atwood 

 of Provincetown. 



Below I have given all the instances known to me of the occurrence of this whale in New 

 England. 



1849. — What may from its small size, have been a whale of this species is thus recorded 

 by the Nantucket Inquirer (vol. 29, no. 62, May 23, 1849): "The fishing schooner Orleans, 

 Captain Tinker, towed into New London [May 15th], a dead whale, 18 or 20 feet long, found 

 near Point Judith," Rhode Island. 



1852. — The capture of a "young finback whale, thirty feet long," off Cape Ehzabeth, 

 Maine, is reported in the Nantucket Inquirer of October 9, 1852 (vol. 32, no. 117). This may 

 possibly have been a Little Piked Whale, but there is no evidence other than its size. 



1856. — A "small whale" that eventually yielded but three barrels of oil, was captured 

 and killed in one of the herring weirs at Lubec, Maine, about the 20th of August (Nantucket 

 Inquirer, vol. 36, no. 97. Aug. 22, 1856). Its small size raises a presumption that it may have 

 been of this species. 



