THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 19 



At the close Champlain remarks as follows : 



"To take up again the thread of my discourse, after the wounding of the 

 whale, as aforesaid, we took numbers of porpoises which our boatswain's mate 

 harpooned, from which we received pleasure and satisfaction." 1 



From the fact that the whales mentioned by Champlain remained on the sur- 

 face when killed it is evident that they were Right whales, and not Finbacks, or 

 Humpbacks, as indeed we know from other sources. 



The branch of the Franciscan monks of the Roman Catholic church known 

 as the Recollets had mission establishments on the St. Lawrence from 1615 to 

 1629. Sagard-Theodat, a monk of this order, published in 1632 an account of his 

 observations in the country, in the course of which he makes some very interesting 

 observations on the whales of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which are among the 

 earliest sufficiently detailed to indicate the kind of whale referred to. He writes: 



[1615-1629. SAGARD-THEODAT'S NARRATIVE.] 



" I amused myself at times, when I felt so disposed, by watching the whales 

 spout and the little whales play, and have seen an infinity of them, particularly at 

 Gaspe, where they disturbed our repose by their puffing, and the divers cruisings 

 of both Qibcers and whales. The Gribar is a kind of whale, so called on account of 

 a protuberance that it seems to have, having the back much raised, where it carries 

 a fin. 



" It is not smaller than the whales, but is not so thick or corpulent, and has 

 the snout longer and more pointed, and a blowhole on the forehead, through which 

 it spouts water with great force. Some on this account call it the puffer. 



"All the whales carry and produce their young fully alive, nursing them, and 

 covering and shielding them with their fins. The Gilars and other whales sleep 

 holding their heads extended a little out of the water, so that this blowhole is 

 exposed and at the surface. The whales are to be seen and discovered from afar 

 by their tail, which they show frequently on diving into the sea, and also by the 

 water which they throw out of their blowholes, which is more than a hogshead at 

 a time, and to the height of two lances, and by this water which the whale throws 

 up, one can judge how much oil it will furnish. 



"There are such as one may obtain more than 400 hogsheads (barriques) from, 

 and others less, and, from the tongue one may ordinarily obtain five or six hogs- 

 heads (and Pliny states that whales are found which are 600 feet long and 360 

 broad). There are some from which one may obtain more. 



" On my return I saw very few whales at Gaspe, in comparison with the preced- 

 ing year, and could not perceive the cause, nor the reason for it, if not that it might 

 be in part the great abundance of blood which flowed from the wound of a large 

 whale, that for pleasure one of our commissioners had given him with a shot of an 

 arquebus, double loaded. This is, however, not the way to capture them, for it 

 requires quite other inventions, and artifices of which the Basques know very well 

 how to make use, but since other authors have written of them, I will refrain from 

 describing them. 



1 LAVERDIERE, CEuvres de Champlain, 2d ed., 3, 1870, pp. 376-377. 



