24 THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 



These whales were quite probably Finbacks, although there is nothing in the 

 narrative whereby to identify them beyond the statement that they were " of com- 

 mon size," and that the one which stranded near " the great Chahoos falls " was 

 "tolerably fat." Van der Donck intimates that there was no fishery here at this 

 time. He writes: 



"There are [in the waters of the New Netherlands] also porpoises, herring- 

 hogs, pot-heads or sharks, turtles, &c., and whales, of which there are none caught, 

 but if preparations were made for the purpose, then it might be easily effected ; but 

 our colonists have not advanced far enough to pursue whaling. A lost bird, however, 

 is frequently cast and stranded, which is cut up." 1 



This is more likely to refer to New York Bay (or North Bay, as it was called) 

 than to the Delaware, or South Bay, for, as we shall see presently, there had been a 

 fishery in the latter region some fourteen or fifteen years previously, which Van der 

 Donck mentions elsewhere. Furthermore, the context applies to New York rather 

 than to Delaware, and Van der Donck's residence was on the Hudson River. By 

 the expression " a lost bird," he seems to mean a stranded whale. 



LONG ISLAND. 



In 1644, according to Starbuck, the town of Southampton, Long Island, ap- 

 pointed persons to attend to "drift" whales, and in 1651 the town of Easthampton 

 arranged for persons to "loke out for whale." These towns and Southwold drew 

 up a petition in 1672, in which it was stated that they had endeavored to establish a 

 whale fishery for " about twenty years," but could not bring it to perfection until 

 " within 2 or 3 years." 



DELAWARE BAT. 



Nothing regarding the occurrence of whales in Delaware Bay appears to have 

 been put into print until De Vries published his account of the attempt of a 

 Dutch company to establish a fishery there in 1631. This undertaking does not 

 seem to have been successful. The kind of whale sought for is not described, but 

 from the fact that De Vries remarks that they " come in winter and remain till 

 March," it was presumably the Right whale. De Vries was employed as a patroon 

 to plant a colony in the New Netherlands. The following references to this enter- 

 prise are of much interest : 



[1631. DE VRIES'S NARRATIVE.] 



"We at the same time equipped a ship with a yacht for the purpose of prose- 

 cuting the voyage, as well to canyon the whale fishery in that region, as to plant 

 a colony for the cultivation of all sorts of grain, for which the country is very well 

 adapted, and of tobacco. This ship with the yacht sailed from the Texel the 12th 

 of December [1630], with a number of people and a large stock of cattle, to settle 

 our colony upon the South River [Delaware River], which lies in the thirty-eighth 

 and a half degree, and to conduct the whale fishery there, as Godyn represented 



'VAN DER DONCK, A., A Description of the New Netherlands, 2d ed., 1656. 2 N. Y. Hist. 

 Coll., i., p. 176. 



