360 WHALING IN THE BAY OF BISCAY CHAP. 
is apt to get lost, and in the skeleton of so huge and unmanage- 
able a beast there is nothing more unwise than to insist upon, as 
specific characters, what may be due merely to defective prepara- 
tion. This Whale has often, and the Greenland Whale also, a 
rough horny protuberance upon the snout known as the “ bonnet.” 
The causation of this is not clear. It has been spoken of as “a 
rudimentary frontal horn.” But this suggestion of an Ungulate 
affinity can hardly be accepted. It seems to be more like a kind 
of corn. 
This Whale was once more abundant on the coasts of Europe 
than it is to-day; it was much hunted by the Basques in past 
time. The Whale which frequented the Bay of Biscay was usually 
called the Biscayan Whale or b. biscayensis ; but there is prob- 
ably no specific difference. Among the small towns which fringe 
the Bay, it is very common to find the Whale incorporated into 
the armorial bearings. “Over the portal of the first old house 
in the steep street of Guetaria,’ writes Sir Clements Markham,’ 
“there is a shield of arms consisting of Whales amid waves of 
the sea. At Motrico the town arms consist of a Whale in the 
sea harpooned, and with a boat with men holding the line.” 
Plenty of other such examples testify to the prevalence of the 
whaling industry on these adjoining coasts of Spain and France. 
It appears that though the fishery began much earlier—even in 
the ninth century—the first actual document relating to it dates 
from the year 1150. It is in the shape of privileges granted 
by Sancho the Wise to the city of San Sebastian. The trade 
was still very flourishing in the sixteenth century. Rondeletius 
the naturalist described Bayonne as the centre of the trade, and 
tells us that the flesh, especially of the tongue, was exposed for 
sale as food in the markets. 
M. Fischer, who, as well as Sir Clements Markham, has 
given an important account of the whaling industry on the 
Basque shores, quotes an account of the methods pursued in the 
sixteenth century. It was at Biarritz—or as Ambroise Pare, 
from whom Fischer quotes, spelt it, Biaris—that the main 
fisheries were undertaken. The inhabitants set upon a hilla 
tower from which they could see “the Balaines which pass, and 
perceiving them coming partly by the loud noise they make, and 
1 Proc. Zool. Soc. 1881, p. 969. 
* Actes Linn. Soc. Bordeaux, 1881. 
