MAMMALS. 657 



some species which are perfectly well known. Of these is the devil-fish., or 

 gray whale of the Pacific, a form which has a large number of other names, 

 and which was formerly very abundant on the California shores, a thou- 

 sand a day passing southward in winter within sight of land ; to-day the 

 average seen from the same stations would not exceed forty. Shore fish- 

 eries are established at various points, which have reduced the numbers. 

 The hump-backs are larger forms occurring in both oceans ; but larger than 

 these are the sulphur-bottoms of the Pacific, the largest of all animals exist- 

 ing in the world. In Scammon's pages are given the dimensions of one 

 animal : length, ninety-five feet ; girth, thirty-nine feet ; length of jawbone, 

 twenty-one feet ; yield of whalebone, eight hundred pounds ; yield of oil 

 one hundred and ten barrels; weight of whole animal (by calculation), 

 two hundred and ninety-four thousand pounds. It is not impossible that 

 individuals a hundred feet in length occur ; but whalers neglect this spe- 

 cies for very valid reasons. It is the strongest of all whales, and swims 

 with remarkable rapidity, so that until the introduction of the bomb-lance, 

 it was almost impossible to capture it. Then, too, its oil is not so good as 

 that of many other easily taken species. 



In the Atlantic it is replaced by the silver-bottom and the fin-backs, 

 the latter but slightly inferior to the sulphur-bottom in size. Of late 

 years, since the almost total cessation of the whale-fishery, they have 

 become very abundant in the Gulf of Maine, and I have seen ten or a dozen 

 in sight at one time. One has no idea of their immense size until one 

 rises a few fathoms away from the boat, blows, and then goes down head- 

 foremost. They are very active, and as they sink when killed, their pur- 

 suit is accomplished with much difficulty. Within recent years their fishing 

 has been prosecuted by means of steamers from Provincetown and Booth- 

 bay, but it has not been very successful from the financial standpoint. 



The bow-head, though much smaller than these species just mentioned 

 (it rarely exceeds fifty feet in length), is by far the most important of all 

 the whalebone whales, on account of the enormous amount of oil and bone 

 it yields. Some of the plates of whalebone may be a foot wide and four- 

 teen feet long, anc 1 of this bone, long and short, over seventeen hundred 

 pounds has been taken from a single individual, while another has yielded 

 two hundred and seventy-five barrels of oil. 



The bow-head is more Arctic in its habits than the right-whales, of 

 which there are no one knows how many species. In olden times they 

 were very abundant on our eastern coast. Then, owing to fishing, they 

 almost entirely disappeared, and now they are once more becoming abun- 

 dant, and a fishery for them has been established in the Carolinas. They 

 are usually confounded with the bow-head, and hence there is some diffi- 



