THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. ) 
of Cumberland Sound] a great whale passed by us, and swam west in among 
the isles.” ? 
Twenty years later Henry Hudson was in Greenland waters, seeking like his 
predecessors that zgnis fatwus, the Northwest Passage to Cathay. In the narratives 
of his voyages there are occasional references to whales. The earliest of these, in 
the narrative of the first voyage in 1607, is as follows: 
[1607. HUDSON’S FIRST VOYAGE. ] 
“ Also wee saw [June 13'"] a whale close by the shoare. Wee called the 
head-land which we saw Youngs Cape; and neere it standeth a very high mount, 
like a round castle, which wee called the Mount of Gods Mercie.”* 
This place appears to have been in Hudson Strait. A few days later we find 
another reference : 
“This day [June 18, 1607] we saw three whales neere our ship, and having 
steered away north-east almost one watch, five leagues, the sea was growne every 
n3 
way. 
This appears to have been on the east coast of Greenland. Finally, in that 
narrative of Hudson’s last voyage, by Prickett, which contains the tragic story of 
his fate, we find another mention of whales, as follows: 
[1610. HUDSON’S FOURTH AND LAST VOYAGE. ] 
“Our course [soon after the 4° of June, 1610] for the most part was betweene 
the west and north-west, till we raysed the Desolations, which is a great iland in 
the west part of Groneland. On this coast we saw store of whales, and at one 
time three of them came close by us, so as wee could hardly shunne them: then two 
passing very neere, and the third going under our ship, wee received no harme by 
them, praysed be God.” * 
This locality was in the vicinity of Cape Farewell, the “ Desolations” being 
on either side of that cape. In the perusal of this account one is reminded very 
forcibly of Seammon’s description of the habits of the Common Finback of the North 
Pacific, Balenoptera velifera Cope. “It frequently gambols about vessels at sea,” 
he writes, “in mid-ocean as well as close in with the coast, darting under them or 
shooting swiftly through the water on either side, at one moment upon the surface, 
belching forth its quick ringing spout, and the next instant submerged deep 
beneath the waves.”° 
Close after Hudson follows Baffin, who was pilot of the ship Discovery for the 
company for the discovery of the Northwest Passage, and approached the Green- 
* Voyages toward the Northwest. Ed. by Thos. Rundall. Hakluyt Soc., 1849, p. 47. Davis’s 
Traverse Book. From Hakluyt, 3, pp. 153, 154. 
* Henry Hudson, the Navigator. Ed. by Geo. Asher. Hakluyt Soc., 1860, p. 3. 
* Op. cit., p. 4. 
* Op. cit., p. 99. 
* Proc. Acad. Nat. Sct. Phila., 1869, p. 52. 
