SPERM WHALE FISHERIES. 



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of New Guinea and adjacent parts, Australia, New Zealand, and several of the Polynesian islands, the 

 coasts of Peru, Chili, and California, the Japanese and Chinese waters, the Molucca group, and the 

 mouth of the Persian Gulf. Its appearance in the Atlantic has of late years been irregular and seldom, 

 though at one time it was of tolerably frequent occurrence in the South Atlantic and American 

 coasts, and near the Bahamas. Its steady pursuit for a long series of years has greatly thinned its 

 numbers. About 1770 the Americans, and a few years later the British, in small ships of 100 tons 

 and over, established the Sperm Whale Fishery with very moderate success. Before 1780 the British 

 Government issued bounties to encourage the trade, and this led to the sending out of larger vessels, 

 while Mr. Enclerby, a London merchant, pushed the fishery into the far-distant shores of the Pacific. 



SPERM WHALE. 



The vessels, of much larger tonnage and better manned, were absent for two or three years, and the 

 scenes of the chase, they say, at times almost defied description. Surgeon Beale's incident, though 

 tolerably well known, is worth notice. On the coast of Japan, in 1832, some three boats pursued a 

 "Whale all day long. By a dexterous move the animal was at last lanced, when it spouted blood, sud- 

 denly descended about forty fathoms, and as quickly rose and dashed the boat into the air in fragments. 

 The men clung to the oars and broken wood, and, in spite of the vicinity of Sharks and the Whale 

 itself, were saved by the other boats, the crews of which avenged themselves by ultimately killing 

 the Whale. Of fighting Whales there are numbers of stories, that of one old male, familiarly known 

 as "New Zealand Tom," being still traditionally recounted in the forecastle. In 1804 the A donis 

 and several other ships simultaneously attacked the fellow, who destroyed some nine boats before 

 breakfast, but in the end was captured, when a host of harpoons were found in its body. There 

 can be no doubt that the Sperm Whale is a migratory animal, though its migrations are by no 

 means clearly understood. It is a gregarious creature, " schools " of a dozen to fifty or sixty being 



