126 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



hands right and left." So said Captain Huntting. Now four boats were 

 utterly lost, some twelve hundred fathoms of line, and all the gear. 

 The remaining two boats were hastily and poorly provided, the men 

 were gallied,* the sun was going down, and the captain, when he was 

 fished out, consented to give up the day and cry beat. 



All hands went to work to fit other boats. Through the night, under 

 shortened sail, the ship lay near the scene of conflict, and while the 

 weather was calm it was possible to keep track of the whale as he occa- 

 sionally beat around. But the breaking day brought rough weather, 

 and the captain proceeded to Buenos Ayres, as much to allow his men, 

 who were mostly green, to run away, as for the purpose of refitting, as 

 he knew they would be useless thereafter. In this design he was not 

 thwarted. Most of them promptly deserted, having had enough of 

 wrestling with "the fighting whale of the La Plata." 



The second instance mentioned by Captain Davis, is the more rare case 

 of vicious pugnacity in the right whale. The name of the captain who 

 was the chief actor in the scenes is not given, but after premising that 

 he is not an old man, and his residence is upon Long Island, he plunges 

 directly into the narration thus, using the language of his informant: 

 "My second mate had fastened to a large whale that seemed disposed 

 to be ugly; so I pulled up and fastened to her also. I went into the 

 bow and darted my lance, but the whale rolled so that I missed the life 

 and struck into the shoulder-blade. It pierced so deep into the bone 

 (perhaps through it) that I could not draw it out; the whole body of the 

 whale shivered and squirmed as though in great pain. Then, turning a 

 little, she cut her flukes, taking the boat amidships.t The broadside 

 was stove in, and the boat rolled over, the crew having jumped into the 

 sea. I cut the line in the chocks at the same moment, to save being run 

 under with a kink. The crew were soon safely housed on the bottom of 

 the upturned boat, or swimming and clinging to the keel. The second 

 .mate wanted to cut his line and pick us up, but I foolishly told him to 

 hold on and kill the whale ; that we were doing quite as well as could 

 be expected. But I had bragged too soon. Just then the whale came 

 up on the full breach, and striking the boat, he went right through it, 

 knocking men and wreck high in the air. Next the great bulk fell over 

 sideways, like a small avalanche, right in our midst; and spitefully cut 

 the corners of her flukes right and left. In the surge and confusion two 



* That is, frightened. 



tThe tail is the chief weapon of therij^ht whale, oflfensively and defensively, and 

 snch is the ability with which it can wield this terrific weapon that it can sweep au 

 arc from eye to eye clear of its foes. The sperm whale, on the contrary, relies mainly 

 on its jaw. In the attack on these monsters, then, the tactics must be varied to avoid 

 more particularly the flukes of the right and the equally formidable lower jaw of the 

 spermaceti whale. Not that the opposite extremes of these brutes are by any means 

 harmless, but they are secondary to "these chief agents. When it is possible to haul 

 alongside the running whale, the officer of the boat will sometimes with his fluke-spade 

 succeed in "hamstringing" the brute by severing the tendons at the "small." 



