THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 15 



" They are as great as porpoises, as white as any snow, their body and head 

 fashioned as a greyhound, they are wont always to abide between the fresh and 

 salt water, which beginneth between the river of Saguenay and Canada." 1 



At the date of Cartier's explorations (and even somewhat before his time) 

 whalers are believed to have pursued the Biscay whale, Baluena biscayensis, in the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence. The records of this industry are for the most part buried 

 in obscurity, or have been destroyed, and such as are now known contain no 

 descriptions of whales. Eugen Gelcich, in an article on Duro's Disquisiciones Nau- 

 ticas, writes : 



"The regular appearance of the whale in the Bay of Biscay at the beginning 

 of autumn and its disappearance with the first breath of spring must have been 

 noticed very early by the Gascognes. Whether it occurred to any one, however, 

 as early as the 10th century to follow the whale opportunely with its departure, 

 in order to discover its summer station, is not demonstrable, although a tradition 

 relative thereto existed in Spain, and perhaps still exists. Vargas Ponce [a cele- 

 brated Spanish historian] in spite of the most diligent search found only records 

 since the year 1530. These were in the municipal and parochial records of Brio. 

 The names of the caravels as well as of their commanders are given. The celebrated 

 Spanish admiral, Juan de Urdaire, began his maritime career in such voyages, 

 which reached to the American coasts." ' 



Later in the century we have the statement made by Anthony Parkhurst in a 

 letter to Hakluyt, in 1578, to the effect that at that time from 20 to 30 Basque 

 whaling vessels repaired to Newfoundland " to kill whale for Traine." 3 



For the year 1587, we have the following reference in the narrative of Davis's 

 third voyage : 



"The 17th [of August, 1587] we met a shippe at Sea, and, as farre as wee 

 could judge, it was a Biskaine : wee thought she went a fishing for Whales, for in 52 

 degrees or thereabout, we saw very many." ' 



His Traverse Book at this date contains the following: 



"The true course, fec. This day, upon the Banke [Grand Bank of Newfound- 

 land] we met a Biscaine bound either for the Grand bay or for the passage. He 

 chased us." 5 



1 Narration of the Navigation to the Islands of Canada, etc. Pinkerton's Voyages, 12, p. 658. 



"Aug. 18, 1535, the sailors saw more whales near Anticosti Id. than they could remember 

 ever to have seen before." (Eschricht, from Marc Lescarbot's Histoire de la nouvelle France, 

 4th ed., 1624, p. 285.) 



* GELCICH, E., Der Fischfang der Gascogner und die Entdeckung von Neufundland. Nach den 

 " Disquisiciones Nauticas " von Caesaro Fernandez Duro bearbeitet. Zeit. Gesell. Erdkunde, Berlin, 

 18, 1883, p. 258. 



3 HAKLUYT, The Principal Navigations of the English Nation, 3, 1600, p. 132. 



4 The Voyages and Works of John Davis. Ed. by A. H. Markham. Hakluyt Soc., 1880, p. 48. 

 ' Op. tit., p. 57. Davis started Aug. 15th at noon in lat. 52 12' and 16 leagues from shore, and 



in the next 44 hours went 80 leagues about E. by S. 



