CAPTURE OF A WHALE'S CALF. 100 



was thought, to be a cow and a yearling calf. 

 They were putting their heads together as in 

 love, or to rub off the crab-lice and barnacles 

 that adhere by millions to the top and sides of 

 their heads. The calf was soon struck, and 

 made little ado of being killed not going into 

 a flurry, or sounding long, or making the water 

 foam, fly, or splintering the cedar with strokes 

 of his tail, and "spilling the men," as they 

 sometimes do. 



The one thought to be the dam prudently 

 made off a mile and a half to windward, whilst 

 we got the cub alongside the ship about eleven 

 o'clock. His proportions were respectable for 

 a youngling thirty-nine feet long and nineteen 

 feet round ; his head seven feet from its tip to 

 the spout-holes, and three feet wide just behind 

 the same, and three feet thick to the inside 

 roof. The thickest of the blubber was eight 

 inches. His fins were each five feet long, and 

 he was six feet across the throat. They rifled 

 him of his blubber and bone in the way already 



rribed, and some time before evening the 

 refuse scrap-mutter of his blubber was burning 



