214 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



revolutionary times, filled with gunpowder gray 

 with age, engraved powder horns with high-pooped 

 and castled-bowed ships of 1650 scratched on their 

 surface, long, straight-bladed swords of the seven- 

 teenth century and iron-bound chests suggestive of 

 Captain Kidd's time. 



But few strangers know of these things and it 

 is very difficult for an outsider to obtain admission 

 to the lofts where the blue wasps build their mud 

 nests on the old bronze sword hilts, and the ghosts 

 of ancient mariners are said to peer from the dor- 

 mer windows. Whenever a whale is sighted off 

 shore, the 



WHOLE TOWN IS EXCITED. 



Every student of whale-lore has read of the late 

 Captain David Gray, who, with the proud title of 

 the prince of whalers, combined the reputation of 

 being one of the most observing and noted field 

 naturalists; but Captain Josh, of Amagansett, has 

 only a local fame as an expert whaler and it is 

 very probable that he has little, if any, knowledge, 

 of the genealogy and history of the whale as it is 

 recorded in books of natural history. Neverthe- 

 less our Amagansett whaler is thoroughly conver- 

 sant with all the tricks and characteristics of live 

 whales and it is doubtful if the prince of whalers 

 himself could excel Captain Josh in his ability to 

 instantly detect the puff of vapor issuing from the 

 blowholes of a distant whale. 



From the crow's nest on top the house, Captain 

 Josh, of -Amagansett, scans the ocean, and where a 



