VOL. XXXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 81 



spawn or bret, as some call it, that sometimes lies on the top of the water, for 

 a mile together. Though the body of this whale is so very bulky, and so 

 exceedingly fat; yet when cut open, they are seldom found to have much more 

 draught than that of an ox, and they dung much as neat cattle do. Their 

 swallow is not much wider than an ox's; but the finback whale has a larger 

 swallow; for he lives upon the smaller fish, as mackarel, herring, &c. great 

 sculls of which they run through, and with a short turn cause an eddy or 

 whirlpool, by the force of which the small fish are brought into a cluster, so 

 that the whale with open mouth will take in some hundreds of them at a time. 

 The sperma ceti whale, besides other fish, feeds much on a small fish that has a 

 bill, which the fishermen call squid fish. The small pieces of these squid bills 

 are plainly to be discerned in the ambergris, and may be picked out of it; they 

 appear glazy, and like little pieces of broken shells. 



Mr. Harris, in his Bibliotheca Navigantium, &c. has given a very particular 

 account of the method of taking whales at Greenland; but our way in New 

 England differs very much from that. The boats our whalemen use in going 

 from the shore after the whale, are made of cedar clapboards, and so very light, 

 that two men can conveniently carry them, though they are 20 feet long, and 

 carry 6 men, viz. the harponeer in the fore part of the boat, 4 oarmen, and 

 the steersman. These boats run very swift, and by reason of their lightness 

 can be easily brought on and off, and so kept out of danger. The whale is 

 sometimes killed with a single stroke, and yet at other times she will hold the 

 whalemen in play near half a day together, with their lances; and sometimes they 

 will escape after having been lanced and having spouted blood, with irons in 

 them, and drags fastened to them, which are thick boards about 14 inches square. 

 Our people formerly used to kill the whale near the shore, but now they go off 

 to sea in sloops and whale-boats, in the months of May, June, and July, be- 

 tween Cape Cod and Bermudas; where they lie by in the night, and sail about 

 in the day, and seldom miss of them; they bring home the blubber in their 

 sloops. The true season for taking the right or whalebone whale is from the 

 beginning of June to the end of May; for the sperma ceti whale, from the 

 beginning of June to the end of August. And it has been observed by the 

 fishermen, that when a sperma ceti whale is struck, he usually, if not always, 

 throws the excrements out of the anus. 



The prodigious strength of this animal lies principally in the tail, that being 

 both their offensive and defensive weapon ; many instances are related. A boat 

 has been cut down from top to bottom with the tail of a whale, as if cut with 

 a saw, the clap-boards scarcely splintered, though the gunnel on the top is of 

 tough wood. Another has had the stem, or stern-post, of about 3 inches 



VOL. vii. M 



