132 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



on shore in the bay." Twenty-nine Right Whales in a single day implies a large number in 

 our near-shore waters. Probably this great catch was somewhat exceptional, however, for 

 already they were rapidly diminishing. At Nantucket, Macy tells us that the greatest number 

 ever killed in a single day was eleven, and that, in 1726, the catch for the entire season was eighty- 

 six, a record which was not equalled there before or since. This first quarter of the eighteenth 

 century with the killing out of the whales, marked the decline of this fishery in New England 

 waters, so that we must suppose Higgeson to have spoken truly when he wrote of the "great 

 store" to be seen a hundred years previously. 



Seasonal Occurrence. Paul Dudley, of Massachusetts, wrote of the Right Whale, in 1725, 



that in the fall of the year they "go Westward, and in the Spring they are headed Eastward 



The true Season for the right or Whalebone Whale, is from the Beginning of February, to the 

 End of May." 1 



Lord Cornbury, in a letter of July, 1708, says of the whalers at Long Island, New York: 

 "About the middle of October they begin to look out for fish, the Season lasts all November, 

 December, January, February, and part of March." 



For a more exact determination of the seasons when the Right Whale was present on 

 the New England coasts, all the records with dates, that have been obtainable, are listed in 

 the following pages, and a summary table is added. Among these records, chronologically 

 arranged, are included a number from the Nantucket Inquirer that refer to eastern Long 

 Island, New York, but which are here brought forward not alone on account of their value in 

 the present connection, but also to make them available to those who are unable to consult 

 that journal. The Nantucketers of the past century were a race of whalemen so that the 

 reports there given may be rather certainly accepted. The Right Whale and less often the 

 Humpback were the only species regularly hunted in our waters until the introduction of more 

 deadly apparatus than the hand harpoon, so that it may usually be assumed that when "whales" 

 are mentioned in the old accounts as seen or pursued, the Right Whale is the species intended. 

 Especially is this the case, since Finbacks or Humpbacks are usually so designated. Most 

 of such indefinite records are nevertheless omitted from the reckoning. 



1606. Rosier, in his relation of Waymouth's voyage to the coast of Maine, speaks of 

 seeing, on May 14th, when off what is now Sankoty Head, Nantucket, " many whales, as we had 

 done two or three dales before." 3 The species of whale is not indicated, but some may have 

 been Right Whales. 



1620. At the time of their arrival at Cape Cod, in late December, 1620, the Pilgrims 

 found whales in numbers about the bay. The oft-quoted journal of Bradford and Winslow, 



1 Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, Abridged, 1734, vol. 7, pt. 3, p. 426^127. 



2 Documents relative to Colonial Hist. N. Y., 1855, vol. 5, p. 59. 



3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1843, ser. 3, vol. 8, p. 156. 



