314 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



On the Massachusetts coast, however, there was still more or less fishing for these whales 

 from time to time, and "humpbacking on the Shoals" was probably the frequent resort of 

 many a Nantucket or Cape Cod fisherman in the years preceding 1850. A writer in the Nan- 

 tucket Inquirer of 1874, recalls the days of his boyhood, "when we were often made glad by the 

 arrival of a fortunate 'humpbacker/" for the crisp bits of "flukes and scraps" resulting from 

 the trying out of the blubber on shore, were perquisites highly esteemed by the childish fancy. 

 In a more or less desultory sort of way this pursuit of Humpback Whales was kept up, even 

 to the time of the Civil War. Thus an item in the Nantucket Inquirer (vol. 32, no. 100, Aug. 

 27, 1852) records the arrival at that port of the schooner Hamilton, which during the first 

 three weeks of August, 1852, had been cruising on the "Shoals" for Humpbacks. In this time, 

 eleven had been struck, of which six were "saved" and produced 130 barrels of oil. This, 

 the account states, was the Hamilton's second successful cruise, but whether in the same or the 

 previous season, is not clear. On the first cruise the amount of oil secured was but sixty barrels. 

 In the same year, the Nantucket Inquirer (vol. 32, no. 121, Oct. 13, 1852) notes that the 

 schooner Union, of Provincetown, "recently captured a whale off Cape Ann, which is the 

 second one that has been taken in that locality within the past few days." Judging from 

 the time of year, these may have been Humpbacks. In 1854, the schooner Wm. P. Dolliver 

 started in early July for "a whaling cruise on the Shoals," but when only a short distance out 

 from Nantucket Harbor, shot a Finback with a bomb-lance and put back with the prize. Again 

 the discovery of three Humpback Whales "on the Shoals" late in October, 1863, was considered 

 sufficient inducement for one of the Nantucket captains to set sail shortly after in pursuit, but 

 with what result does not appear (Nantucket Inquirer, vol. 43, no. 47, Oct. 31, 1863). 



With the general introduction of the bomb-lance and the renewed activity in shore whaling 

 by means of small steamers, a great many whales were killed in New England waters during 

 the '70's and '80's, but what proportion of these were Humpback Whales cannot now be ascer- 

 tained. Mr. J. Henry Blake gives me a note of one taken in Cape Cod Bay in 1875, by Jesse 

 Glenn of the schooner Starlight. "Two were killed in the spring of 1879, with bomb-lances" 

 near Provincetown. 1 In this same year "the Humpbacks were abundant on the coast of Maine. 

 One of the most successful whalers out of Provincetown this season is the 'Brilliant,' a very 

 old pink-stern schooner of seventeen tons, which had been hunting this species off Deer Isle, 

 Maine. Up to September 1, she had taken four whales, yielding one hundred and forty-five 

 barrels. The 'Brilliant' carries but one whale-boat and tries out the oil upon shore, towing 

 in the whales as they are killed." 1 Of the hundred or more whales killed in our waters by 

 Provincetown whalers in 1880, but three were said to be Humpbacks, the rest "of the finback 

 species." In the following year, however, no less than twenty Humpbacks were shot with 

 bomb-lances in Provincetown Harbor on May 14th; doubtless others were killed at this time. 



, Goode, G. B. Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1884, sect. 1, p. 27. 

 2 Clark, A. Howard. In G. B. Goodc's Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., 1887, sect. 5, vol. 2, p. 42. 



