GLOSSARY 
WORDS AND PHRASES USED BY WHALEMEN 
Bailer. — A copper or iron vessel used in clip- 
ping up oil. Two of these utensils are used 
on board of a whaler : one with a short, 
upright handle, called the hand-bailer; the 
other, with a staff to it sis feet long, used 
at the try -works for bailing the oil from 
the pots, is called a long-handled bailer. 
For illustration, see fig. 4, p. 239. 
Becket. — A thing used in ships to confine loose 
ropes, tackles, or spars. 
Black -skin. — The rete-mucosum and the cuti- 
cle, the principal seat of color in whales. 
Black - -whale, or black --whale oil. — Is that 
produced from all the baleen whales, in- 
cluding the rorcpials. All these varieties of 
whales are sometimes termed black whales, 
in contradistinction to the Sperm AVhale. 
Blanket -piece. — A strip or section of blubber 
cut from a whale in a spiral direction, and 
raised by means of the cutting -tackle. It 
varies from two to four feet or more in 
width, and is in length from ten to twenty- 
five feet. 
Blasted. — A term used to signify that a whale 
is much swollen, or far advanced in decom- 
position after death. 
Blink, or ice -blink. — A stratum of lucid white- 
ness which appears in the lower part of the 
atmosphere over ice and land covered with 
snow. 
Blow. — Blow signifies the action of the whale 
in making one respiration. 
Blubber -fork. — A utensil used in pitching the 
minced blubber from the tubs into the try- 
pots. For illustration, see fig. 1, p. 239. 
Blubber - hook. — A stout iron hook of seventy- 
five to a hundred pounds weight, which is 
used in flensing a whale. See illustration, 
p. 232. 
Boarding - knife. — A sharp two-edged instru- 
ment, principally used in cutting the toggle- 
hole in the blubber of a whale, for the 
purpose of inserting the strap to the cut- 
ting-tackle, so as to hoist up the mass of 
fat called the blanket -piece. For illustra- 
tion, see pi. xxv. 
Bolting. — Signifies the action of a whale when 
it leaps out diagonally to the surface of the 
water. 
Bone -spade. — A cutting -spade, with a thin, 
long shank to it. See cutting- spade, pi. 
xxv. 
Bonnet. — Cheever defines the bonnet of a Eight 
"Whale ' ' as being the crest or comb where 
there burrow legions of barnacles and crabs, 
like rabbits in a warren, or insects in the 
shaggy bark of an old tree." [Note. — This 
description applies especially to the south- 
ern Right Whales ; in the northern Right 
Whale's bonnet, but very few barnacles are 
present, and comparatively few parasites of 
any description.] 
Bomb -shot. — The distance a bomb -lance can 
be fired into a whale effectively, which is 
about twenty yards. 
Breaching. — Signifies the movement of a whale 
when leaping out of the water, in nearly a 
perpendicular direction or otherwise. 
Breaking black -skin. — The act of darting a 
harpoon into a whale. 
[ 309 ] 
