MODERN FIN-WHALING 169 



gallant whale dragged the steamer, with the dead weight of 

 two miles of rope, and the engines going half-speed astern, 

 and at 9 a.m. the following morning the monster seemed to 

 be as lively and powerful as ever. At 10 a.m., however, its 

 strength seemed to decrease, and at 11 it was wallowing on 

 the surface, where, at 12.30, it was finally lanced by the 

 captain. This great fight occupied twenty-eight hours, the 

 whale having dragged the steamer a distance of thirty miles 

 to Cape St. Mary. 



The Common Rorqual, or " Finback," is the second largest 

 whale. Adults are from 60 to 70 feet in length. The upper 

 surface is a dark amber-brown, the lower white. In a few 

 examples, a grey-brown colour covers the whole of the 

 lower parts, and these are known to the Norwegian whale- 

 men as " bastards," and considered by them as separate 

 species. This is, however, an error, as the dark colour is 

 merely an individual variation. The baleen plates are 3 feet 

 in length and 375 in number on each side, being of two 

 colours, blue-grey and yellowish-white. They are more 

 valuable than those of the Blue Whale or the Humpback, but 

 fetch less than the "plates" of Rudolphi Rorqual, which are 

 considered the best quality amongst the Balccnoptera. 



The distribution of this whale is very wide. It travels 

 all over the temperate seas of the northern and southern 

 hemispheres. It is abundant off the Antarctic ice, and num- 

 bers pass up and down the Pacific, and go as far north as 

 the Aleutian Islands and Behring Straits. On the western 

 Atlantic side many winter to the east of the West Indian 

 Islands, and appear off the Massachusetts coast about March, 

 working up into the St. Lawrence and off the south and 

 east coast of Newfoundland, where they stay until August. 

 The main body seem to scatter out on the Grand Banks, 



