228 WHALES. 



ing, and attempting to rise under it, and dash it to pieces 

 with her back. The female is usually larger than 

 the male, and generally has a young one in attendance ; 

 so that the desire of capturing her increases with the 

 danger. Even the young when following the mother, 

 in which state the fishermen call them short-heads, 

 yield a great deal of oil, often as much as fifty 

 barrels. Those that are in their second year, and are 

 supposed to be just weaned, being much less valuable. 

 The fishers call them stunts, and reckon them not 

 half so valuable as short-heads. After this they get 

 fatter, and appear to grow progressively for a period 

 of years, the prime length of which is not known ; 

 but below a certain size they are called skull-fish, and 

 after that, fish, the size being described by the length 

 of the whalebone. 



It is by no means improbable that, before whales 

 were so much thinned by fishing, they occupied a 

 much greater range of the ocean than they do at the 

 present time ; as there are many allusions to them in 

 the writings of the ancients. These accounts must, 

 however, be received with a great deal of caution, not 

 only on account of the mass of fable that they blended 

 with all descriptions of natural objects, but because 

 we are never absolutely certain of the species. The 

 M.v(rTiKrJTO$, mentioned by Aristotle, is more likely to 

 have been some of the spermaceti whales, than the 

 mysticetus of the moderns ; as these whales range more 

 extensively, are furnished with teeth, and have much 

 wider throats ; which last are two qualities that the 

 ancients generally give to their sea-monsters ; though 

 as they give them teeth in both jaws, the dolphin or 



