308 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



1878. True (1904, p. 232) records a skeleton in the U. S. National Museum (no. 21492) 

 from a whale killed at Cape Cod probably in this year. 



1879. On April 12th, a thirty-foot specimen stranded in Provincetown Bay. A cast 

 was made of it for the U. S. National Museum and its skeleton is also preserved there (no. 

 16252) (S. F. Baird: Kept. U. S. Commr. Fish and Fisheries for 1879, 1882, p. xx). Two 

 others were killed in the spring of this year in Provincetown Harbor by the use of bomb-lances 

 (G. B. Goode: Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1884, sect. 1, p. 27). In this year 

 Humpbacks were abundant in summer off the Maine coast, and four were taken previous to 

 September 1st, by a small schooner, the Brilliant, of Provincetown (ibid.). 



1880. In the spring of this year one was killed and brought into Bass Harbor, Maine 

 (A. H. Clark in Goode's Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1887, sect. 5, vol. 2, p. 40). 

 Three others were killed during the spring and summer by Provincetown whalers in New Eng- 

 land waters (ibid., p. 42). 



1881. On May 14th, no less than twenty Humpbacks were shot with bomb-lances in 

 Provincetown Harbor (G. B. Goode: Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1884, sect. 1, 

 P- 27). 



1895. About May 1st, a Humpback was wounded by Captain E. W. Smith, off Province- 

 town. 



1903. Mr. Owen Bryant tells me that during a cruise from the Isles of Shoals to Nova 

 Scotia, September 4-6, he saw in all a hundred or more. They were mainly in pairs and per- 

 haps mated at this time. 



Mr. Howard L. Shurtleff gives me a note of a whale that was seen close to the 

 Marblehead shore, Massachusetts, for an entire afternoon in early September. With a glass, 

 he could see the barnacles on the whale as it came partly out of water, and noticed that in diving 

 it threw its tail clear. These two facts seem to indicate that it was a Humpback. 



1908. Two whales that appeared in Portland Harbor, Maine, in July of this year, may 

 have been Humpbacks. According to the newspaper report (Lewiston Journal) they were 

 watched for some while "peacefully romping about" near Peak's Island, occasionally "flapping 

 their huge tails out of water." The latter observation, if true, would seem to indicate Hump- 

 backs. 



1911. A number of Humpbacks were seen on August 5th, by my friend, Dr. Charles W. 

 Townsend, while off the Maine coast about an hour's voyage from Cape Ann, en route from 

 St. John, N. B., to Boston. Occasionally five or six were seen close together, and when they 

 sounded, their tails were lifted from the water in the characteristic manner. 



1913. About August 14th, Mr. Walter H. Rich observed numbers of Humpbacks off 

 Sankoty Head, Mass. 



