28 THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 



Transactions) which is explicit as to the size and shape of the whales, the mouths 

 in which they are found, aud other matters. 1 The whales were Humpbacks. Two 

 old females and three cubs were taken at first and afterwards 16 other individ- 

 uals. One old female was 88 ft. long, the flukes 23 ft. broad, the flipper 26 ft. 

 long, the baleen 3 ft. long. The other female was about 60 ft. long, and of the 

 cubs one was 33 ft. long, and the remaining two 25 or 26 ft. The writer states that 

 the whales occurred only from the beginning of March to the end of May (or of 

 April), after which they left the coast and were supposed to go to the Gulf 

 of Mexico. 



In the second part of this article reference is made to the stranding of a sperm 

 whale on the New England coast, " of that sort which they call Tmmpo" and 

 further that " these whales were to be met with, between the Coast of New- 

 England and New-Netherland, where they might be caught eight or nine months 

 in the year." 



This subject was taken up again in 1667 by Richard Norwood, an " intelli- 

 gent gentleman living upon the place," but he seems to have had his information 

 entirely at second-hand. 



" For the killing of Whales, it hath been formerly attempted in vain, but 

 within these 2 or 3 years, in the Spring-time and fair weather, they take some- 

 times one, or two, or three in a day. They are less, I hear, than those in Green- 

 land, but more quick and lively. 



" . . . I have heard from credible persons that there is a kind of such 

 as have the Sperma at Eleutheria, and others of the Bahama Islands (where also 

 they find often quantities of Amber-greese) and that those have great teeth (which 

 ours have not) and are very sinewy." '" 



The next year, 1668, Norwood's friend, Richard Stafford, Sheriff of the 

 Bermudas, who appears to have been a practical whaler, wrote a letter to the 

 Royal Society in which the whale fishery is again referred to. His statements, 

 though erroneous in some particulars, are very interesting, and are, so far as I 

 know, the first recorded observations of any person who was familiar with whales 

 in American waters from having actually himself taken part in their capture. 

 He writes : 



" We have hereabout [the Bermudas] very many sorts of Fishes. There is 

 amongst them great store of Whales, which in March, April and May use our 



'ANON., Of the New American Whale-fishing about the Bermudas. Philos. Trans., i, No. i, 

 March 6, 1665, pp. 11-13. 



ANON., A Further Relation of the Whale-fishing about the Bermudas, and on the Coast of 

 New-England and New-Netherland. Philos. Trans., i, No. 8, Jan. 8, i66f, pp. 132, 133. 



This fishery was to be begun March 22, 1664, but it appears not to have been until April. (See 

 LEFROY, Memorials of the Bermudas, 2, pp. 211 and 214.) 



1 NORWOOD, RICHARD. An Extract of a Letter, written from the Bermudas, giving an account 

 of ... the Whale-fishing there practised anew, and of such Whales as have the Sperma Ceti in 

 them. Philos. Trans., i, No. 30, 1667, pp. 565-567. Norwood made the first surveys of the 

 islands and divided them into shares. 



