200 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



The Boston daily papers of January 13th, 1915, chronicle the disappearance of the Roaring 

 Bull buoy off Pease's Island, N. B. The report states that the Canadian Government steamer, 

 which went out to locate the missing buoy, found it at some distance from its station with a 

 50-foot whale entangled in its chain. Apparently the whale had dragged the buoy with its 

 anchor, weighing in all 5,000 pounds until it had become exhausted and sunk. 



Food. 



The food of the Finback Whale consists in part of fish and in part of small pelagic crusta- 

 ceans. On the Newfoundland coast, the stomachs of several Finbacks which I examined 

 contained enormous quantities of the small shrimp-like schizopod, Thysanoessa inermis. No 

 doubt this is also eaten by the Finbacks on the New England coast, yet it is probable that other 

 species too are taken. In his explorations in the Gulf of Maine in July and August, 1912, 

 Dr. H. B. Bigelow (1914) failed to obtain T. inermis in the tow, at all, though other schizopods 

 and copepods were abundant. This is the more interesting since Finback Whales are common- 

 est in these months and several were seen by Dr. Bigelow on this cruise. He found the small 

 copepod Calanus fmmarchicus abundant, and the large schizopod Meganyctiphanes norvegica 

 common. Undoubtedly both these are eaten by Finbacks. In a winter cruise, Dr. Bigelow 

 obtained Thysanoessa inermis on the south coast of Massachusetts commonly in the tow. 

 Lillie (1910, p. 786) found that Meganyctiphanes norvegica composed nearly the entire stomach 

 contents, so far as ascertainable, in a number of Finbacks killed off the west coast of Ireland 

 in July and August. It is likely, therefore, that it is largely eaten on our own coasts by these 

 whales in summer. 



Fish of several species are consumed in great quantities but exact observations are difficult 

 to obtain. Paul Dudley in his famous essay on the whales of New England, says of the Right 

 Whale, that "their Swallow is not much bigger than an Ox's, but the Finback Whale has a 

 larger Swallow: for he lives upon the smaller Fish, as Mackarel, Herring, &c. great Sculls 

 [i. e. Schools] of which they run through, and, with a short Turn, cause an Eddy or Whirlpool, 

 by the Force of which, the small Fish are brought into a Cluster; so that this Fish, with open 

 Mouth, will take in some Hundreds of them at a time." No doubt the whirlpool supposed to 

 be made by the whale in feeding is largely fanciful, but it is true that the Herring forms an 

 important part of the food of the Finbacks on our coast. It will be of interest to consider 

 briefly the occurrence of the herring on our shores in connection with the presence of these 

 whales. H. F. Moore l has written an extensive treatise on herring fishing in the region of 

 Passamaquoddy Bay, Maine, from which the following notes are extracted. 



1 Moore, H. F. Observations on the herring and herring fisheries of the northeast coast, with especial reference to 

 the vicinity of Passamaquoddy Ray. Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish and Fisheries for 189(i, 1898, vol. 22, p. 387-422, pi. 60-62. 



