THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 71 
In his list of whaling vessels under date of 1789, Starbuck notes that 8 vessels 
sailed from Cape Cod for the Strait of Belle Isle. One of these arrived in the 
home port October 6th, two others also in that month, and one in August.’ 
In the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society are various other 
references to the whale fishery, but very little regarding the whales themselves. 
The following are the most important : . 
In an address to King James II. by the Colony of New Plymouth, signed by 
Thos. Hinckley, October, 1687, we find this note : 
“There are also some small whales, or part of them, sometimes in some 
winters cast on our shore—some whereof making, with much labor, seven or eight 
barrels of oil, and some between that and twenty,—which have been some help to 
the poor of those poor towns planted on the Cape, being the barrenest part of the 
country.” ” 
A letter of Sam]. Maverick to Sampson Bond (in the Winthrop papers), 
dated from New York, May 30, 1669, states of New England: 
“Coddfish is found in abundance on this coast; above 20 whales gotten this 
Spring.” * 
The Winthrop papers also contain a letter from Wait Winthrop to Fitz-John 
Winthrop, dated January 27, 1700, as follows: 
“The winter has bin so favorable that they have killed many whales in Cape 
Cod bay; all the boates round the bay killed twenty nine whales in one day, as 
som that came this week report; as I came by when I was there last one company 
had killed thre [3], two of which lay on Sandwich beach, which they kild the 
day before, and reckned they had kild another the same day, which they expected 
would drive on shore in the bay.” 4 
In 1749 was published a work entitled “A Summary Historical and Political 
of the British Settlements in North America,” by Wm. Douglass,’ in which the 
author inserts two “ digressions” concerning whales and the whale fishery. Though 
covering but a few pages and repeating one another to a considerable extent, they 
contain valuable data regarding the whales of the Atlantic Coast, and especially 
the Right whale. The matters touched upon are the number of kinds of whales 
recognized by New England whalers, the characters of the Greenland Right whale, 
New England Right whale, Pinback, Humpback, and “Scrag” whales; the mi- 
grations and habits of different species; changes in habits due to excessive fishing 
and differences in temperature in different winters; fishing stations; and kind of 
* STARBUCK, p. 187. ° [bid.(4), 7, p. 318. 
" Mass. Hist. Coll. (4), 51, p. 78 2 GEE (5) > Ds BS 
* Douctass, Wm., A Summary, Historical and Political . . . of the British Settlements in 
North America. 2 vols. London, 1749-53. 8°. Published again in 1760. 
This work was originally published in 1747 in smaller form and much briefer. There was no 
cetological matter in the imperfect copy which I examined in the Library of Congress. Allen 
states that there appears to have been another edition in 1755. 
