OF THE BIRDS AND LARGER FISHES 19 



or hunt fish for their livelihood, alone breaks at 

 times the death-like silence in the lonely bays and 

 inlets. A large sperm whale, 70 feet long, was 

 towed into Battle Harbour our first year ; 1,400 

 gallons of oil were taken from his head. This 

 variety has large teeth, which are used by ivory 

 cutters. A Captain Clarke, writing in 1766, narrates 

 how a sperm whale charged one of his boats ; it 

 struck the bow with such violence that it threw his 

 son, who was harpooning, some feet into the air. The 

 whale turned and caught him in her devouring jaws 

 as he came down. He was heard to scream, and 

 part of his body was seen hanging out of its mouth, 

 when it " sounded." A small but beautiful whale, 

 "as white as a sheet," is common on the coast. I 

 have seen it caught in cod-traps. Its skin makes 

 excellent leather. The hump-back whale, and more 

 rarely the right-whale are also to be seen. The 

 ferocious " thresher " whale also visits us. It has 

 terrible teeth, and one variety has also a huge back- 

 fin, six feet high, with which the fishermen say they 

 have seen it beating its prey to death. 1 Captain 

 Scammon tells us of an attack by three threshers 

 on a huge cow- whale and her baby in a bay. " Like 

 wolves they flew at her throat, dragging her under 

 water, the others charging at her and leaping right 

 over her. At last they killed the baby, and when 

 it sank kept diving down and coming up with large 

 pieces of its flesh. Meanwhile, the poor mother 



1 Goode's United Stales Fisheries. 



