392 WHALES, SEALS, AND SEA-SERPENTS 



regular grooves. All the great whales that come ashore 

 from time to time upon our coasts belong to this 

 family. A curious study of their occurrences on the 

 continental coasts of the North Sea might be made 

 in the seaport towns of Germany, Holland, and Den- 

 mark, where it was for centuries the custom to record 

 the stranding of a whale by a commemorative picture 

 hung in the Rathhaus or Council Chamber. Till recent 

 years the whales of this family were immune from 

 persecution, but it is very different nowadays. About 

 forty years ago a Norwegian sea-captain, Svend Foyn, 

 began a fishery for these whales off the north coast 

 of Finmark. The short baleen is of little value, but 

 the whales yield an abundance of oil, their bones make 

 excellent manure, and even the flesh is utilized, being 

 dried, ground to powder, and used in part for manure 

 and in part for mixing with cattle-foods. Svend Foyn 

 made a fortune, and laid the foundations of a great 

 industry. Political reasons led towards the end of 

 the nineteenth century to the closure of the Norwegian 

 fishery, the local fishermen asserting that the slaughter 

 of the whales diminished their catch of fish ; but the 

 Norwegian whale fishers carried their trade elsewhere 

 to Fasroe, Iceland, Scotland, Newfoundland, and more 

 recently to a number of stations in the Southern Ocean, 

 the Falklands, South Georgia, South Orkney, and 

 elsewhere. In Shetland there are now four stations, 

 and there is another at Bunavenader, in Harris ; there 

 are also one or two in Ireland. The method of fishing 

 is everywhere the same, by means of small steamers 

 armed with a powerful harpoon gun. The whales are 

 towed ashore, and their carcasses are rapidly disposed 

 of with the aid of elaborate machinery. 



The following table shows the catch in Scotland in 

 recent years : 



