observed on the coasts of Cornwall. 429 



continued near it, at intervals, for a long time, sometimes at no 

 greater distanee than a fathom. It was such as, although an old 

 fisherman, he had never seen before ; and he supposed it to be 

 between 30 and 40 feet long ; but he could not well distinguish 

 the hinder part of the body. The body itself was very thick 

 and solid, and it had a fin on the back, of an extraordinary shape, 

 appearing like a hump, — not high, but, as he judged, about two 

 fathoms long, having the uj)per portion in a waved form, as if 

 in separate humps, and tapering behind into the general shape, 

 where the body became more slender. It appeared to blow or 

 breathe from the middle of the head, and seemed by no means 

 shy, although at times it moved swiftly. 



A doubt must rest on this species, as a visitor to our coast, 

 until an instance of its capture shall enable some fortunate ob- 

 server to examine it more closely ; but there is little difficulty in 

 believing that some of the larger whales which come to us are 

 still little known to naturalists. 



It is to this class of whalebone whales that writers refer when 

 they tell us that whales, sturgeons, and, as some assert, por- 

 poises, are royal fishes, which the king, by his prerogative, has 

 a right to claim when cast on the shore in any place within the 

 kingdom ; except this right has been granted, as in a few in- 

 stances it has been, to any of his subjects. " The king himself,^^ 

 says Jacob in his 'Law Dictionary,' "is to have the head and 

 body, to make oil ; and the queen is to have the tail, to furnish 

 whale-bones for her royal vestments.^' I shall say more on this 

 subject when I come to speak of the fisheries of former days. 



The royal vestments would have been badly supplied, if stiffened 

 only with the bones obtained from the whale's tail ; and the 

 whale itself is so seldom thrown on shore, that we might suppose 

 the regal cupidity to have received but little gratification from 

 the occurrence of such an accident. But we shall by-and-by 

 discern other reasons that made it valuable; and thei-efore it 

 was thought not unworthy of being included within a grant by 

 the crown of the charter constituting the Black Prince the first 

 Duke of Cornwall, where whales and sturgeons occui-ring within 

 the king's dominions on that coast are specially granted to him. 

 It is uncertain what other permanent lay grants besides this, in 

 our county, of the same objects, exist; but at least there is one 

 of small extent, along the eastern shore of the county, in the 

 parish of Talland, and which is claimed — and for other objects 

 besides whales has been exercised, even in recent instances, — by 

 the ancient family of Trelawny, in right of purchase with the 

 family mansion from the crown in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 

 But it can scarcely be supposed that ecclesiastical persons would 

 overlook an acquisition esteemed so valuable ; and although in 



