Whales as the Whalers Knew Them 191 



whaling parties that a thousand whales passed 

 southward daily from the I5th of December 

 to the first of February for several successive 

 seasons after shore whaling was established 

 [1851]. . . . Accepting this number without al- 

 lowing for those which passed offshore out of 

 sight from the land, or for those which passed 

 before the I5th of December or after the 1st of 

 February, the aggregate would be 47,000." 



Sperm whales were often seen in schools esti- 

 mated in the thousands in the early days. Dr. 

 Thomas Beale (Natural History of the Sperm 

 Whale) says: "I have seen in one school as 

 many as five or six hundred." That was written 

 in 1839, at a time when whale ships by the 

 hundred had scoured the Pacific for more than 

 twenty years and had greatly reduced the num- 

 ber of whales on the grounds visited by Dr. 

 Beale. 



The largest schools of sperm whales were com- 

 posed of females and their young, with from one 

 to three stalwart males in company, which were 

 known to the whalers as "schoolmasters." Like 

 land animals of similar habit, these lordly bulls 



