HLTMPBACK WHALE. 



315 



A clipping from the Provincetown Beacon, kindly loaned me by Mr. J. Henry Blake, states 

 that a Humpback was wounded about the first of May, 1895, by Capt. "Ed. Walter" Smith, 

 a Provincetown whaler. After this year the shore whaling with small steamers was abandoned 

 by the New England fishermen. 



Yield of Oil. 



The amount of oil yielded by the Humpback Whale is given by Goode ' as averaging from 

 twenty-five to thirty barrels. This is the yield under the old method of trying out the blubber 

 alone. The modern practice of trying out the entire carcass affords a greater return of oil, but 

 that from the flesh and bones is inferior. The specimen previously mentioned that gave 54 

 barrels must have been unusually fat. The average of fourteen Humpbacks, the totals of which 

 have just been given, was 33.3 barrels each. The oil is not distinguished commercially from 

 that of the Balaenopterae. 



The whalebone is short and coarse-grained and in former times was thrown away by 

 the fishermen along with the rest of the carcass after stripping the blubber. At the present 

 time, however, it is carefully saved and sold with that of Finbacks and Blue Wliales by the 

 whaling companies of Newfoundland and the northern European coasts. 



Enemies and Parasites. 



It is not known that the Humpback has much to fear from predacious sea animals. As 

 before mentioned, the Killer Wliale no doubt at times attacks a larger whale, but there are 

 few authentic data on this point. That the swordfish may attack 

 a whale is also not impossible, and if tradition may be believed, 

 it has occasionally happened. Such instances must be very rare, 

 however. 



Of external parasites, the Humpback is the host of a most 

 characteristic barnacle, Coronula, which has become remarkably 

 adapted for attachment to the exterior of the whale through the 

 lobular outpocketings of the valves of its shell, whereby it is 

 firmly embedded in the whale's integument. These barnacles 

 occur particularly at the symphysis of the jaw, and along the 

 knobs on the outer edge of the pectorals, on the rough tubercles 

 of the head, and sometimes about the anus or scattered on the 

 ventral part of the abdomen. The whalemen commonly believe 

 that the lively antics of the Humpback are the result of its efforts 

 to get rid of these parasites. Darwin, in his Monograph of the Cirripeds, recognizes three 



Text-fig. 12. — Whale louse 

 (Paracyamus hoopis), a crusta- 

 cean parasitic on the Munipl)ack 

 Whale (after Lutken, 1873, Plate 

 3, fig. 6). 



' Goode, G. B. Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1887, sect. 5, vol. 2, p. 40. 



