4 io WHALES AND DOLPHINS 



The Whale drive, with the strategic skill involved, may 

 possess all the zest of sport, but the massacre sickens one 

 with its barbaric savagery. At such a moment it is difficult 

 to remember that the seemingly merciless butchers are but 

 honest toilers filling the winter larder according to the 

 immemorial Faroese custom. By the time the last victim's 

 agony is over the water of the bay is literally crimson, the 

 men are dripping and blood-smeared. Then, suddenly as it 

 began, the hubbub subsides, and the ferocious whale- 

 hunter becomes once more the peaceable Faroeman. 



HUMPBACK WHALE (Megaptera boops). 

 Coloured Plate XXIX. Fig. 3. 



A glance at the illustration will show the dorsal erection 

 like a dumpy fin which gains for the animal the name 

 ' Humpback ' ; but the most marked difference between this 

 species and those already described rests in the greater 

 length of the arms, hence justifying the generic name, 

 which signifies ' great wings.' Attaining a length of forty- 

 five to fifty feet, with flippers from ten to fourteen feet 

 long, the Humpback ranges through the seas of all latitudes 

 between the two frozen oceans. 



All Whales are grievously afflicted by parasites, barnacles, 

 limpets, and slimy sea-grass that cause the monsters unbear- 

 able irritation. The Humpback probably suffers more 

 than any other of the tribe. The belly blubber is divided 

 into longitudinal folds with grooves over two inches in 

 depth, in which limpets breed with but little fear of 

 removal, even when the Whale drags its vast body over 

 submerged rocks or along the bottom of a coral reef. 



Humpbacks usually yield but a moderate amount of oil, 

 often only ten barrels, though sometimes an extra blubbered 

 specimen will furnish ten times the quantity. In common 

 with the Rorqual, the Humpback is nevertheless hunted 

 more frequently than was formerly the case. Off the coast 

 of Norway and the north coast of Ireland they are occa- 

 sionally very numerous. Short excursions that end in 

 the capture of a number of poor Whales may really result 



