WHALE HUNTING WITH GUN AND CAMERA 



raise her head and flukes above the water, supporting her- 

 self on a small portion of the belly, turning easily and head- 

 ing toward the boat, which made it very difficult to capture 

 her. 



It appears to be their habit to get into the shallowest 

 inland waters when their cubs are young. For this reason 

 the whaling ships anchor at a considerable distance from 

 where the crews go to hunt the animals, and several vessels 

 are often in the same lagoon. 1 



The whalemen in Korea, where the hunting is done 

 from small steamships by the Norwegian method, do 

 not regard the animals as especially dangerous. They 

 seldom lance one from the pram, as is frequently done 

 with other whales, because the devilfish seem to be 

 very sensitive to pain and as soon as the iron penetrates 

 the body the animal will raise itself in the water, 

 throwing its head from side to side and sometimes 

 lashing about with its flukes and flippers. 



Probably if the gray whales were hunted on their 

 breeding grounds about the southern end of Korea, 

 they would be found to be dangerous even to the ves- 

 sels themselves, but I doubt if more so than other 

 species under similar conditions. 



Most whales are subject to diseases of various kinds 

 and the devilfish is no exception. One specimen was 

 brought to the station at Ulsan with all the flesh on 

 the left side of the head badly decomposed and in 

 some places entirely gone, leaving the bone exposed; 

 what remained hung in a soft, green evil-smelling 

 mass. The whale had evidently suffered considerably 



1 (/ c., p. 25.) 



210 



