SPITZBERGEN AND GREENLAND. 105 



CHAPTER VII. 



Of the Whale.i 



The fisli properly called the tohale, for whose sake our ships 

 chiefly undertake the voyage to Spitzhcrgen, is differing from 

 other tfhalcs in his finns and mouth, which is without teeth, 

 but instead thereof long, black, somewhat broad and horny 

 flakes, all jagged like hairs : he differs from the finn-fish in 

 his finns, for the finn-fish hath a great finn on his back, but 

 the whale, properly so called, hath none on his back : and 

 there is two finns behind his eyes of a bigness proportionable 

 to the whale, covered with a thick black skin, delicately 

 marbled with M'hite strokes ; or as you see in marble, trees, 

 houses or the like things represented. In the tail of one 

 the fishes was marbled very delicately this number, 1222, 

 very even and exact, as if they had been painted on it on 

 purpose. This marbling on the whale is like veins in a piece 

 of wood, that run streight through, or else round about the 

 center or pith of a tree, and so go both white and yellow 

 strokes, through the thick and the thin strokes, that is like 

 parchment or vellam, and give to the whale an incomparable 

 beauty and ornament. When these finns are cut up, you 

 find underneath the thick skin bones that look like unto a 

 man's hand, when it is opened and the fingers are expanded 

 or spread ; between these joynts there are stiff" sinews, which 

 flye up and rebound again if you fling them hard against the 

 ground, as the sinews of great fish, as of a sturgeon, or of 

 some four footed beasts generally do. You may cut pieces 

 of these sinews of the bigness of your head ; they squeeze 

 together when thrown on the ground, and so rebound very 

 high, and as swift as an arrow from the string of a bow. The 

 ^ Baltena mysticetus; the Right Whale. 



