226 The Story of the New England Whalers 



These blackfish are only twenty-two feet long 

 at most At one point on the coast of New Zea- 

 land a station has been established for the express 

 purpose of taking right whales with a net. The 

 following, regarding this station and its net, was 

 written by Mr. Allen Kelly, and published in 

 Forest and Stream on July 21, 1906: 



"Wangamumu is a little bay on the east coast, 

 a few miles south of a prominent cape which juts 

 out to the northeast and might easily be mistaken 

 for the northeastern extremity of the North 

 Island. During May and June the Antarctic 

 whale migrates north into warmer waters, and it 

 seems probable that there is some set of currents 

 around the headland of Wangamumu which de- 

 ceives him into seeking a passage to the Tasman 

 Sea by boring into the shore at that point. What- 

 ever may be the cause, the fact is that schools of 

 whales hug the shore and pass very close to a 

 great jutting rock at Wangamumu. 



"Straight out into the sea from the point of 

 rocks is stretched the whale net, made of three- 

 quarter inch wire rope in six-foot mesh, each 

 mesh being formed of separate sections of rope 



