282 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXIV, 



and Morses upon the coast of Greenland [i. e., Spitzbergen], or any other 

 place in the North Ocean/' issued by the Muscovie Company of London 

 March 31, 1611. These instructions about whales are believed to have 

 been based on information derived from Biscay whalers. "The first sort 

 of Whales" is the Greenland Whale, here briefly described under the name 

 "Bearded Whale." "The second sort of W T hale," say these instructions, 

 "is called Sarda, of the same colour and fashion as the former, but some- 

 what lesse, and the finnes not above one fathom long, and yieldeth in Oyle, 

 according to his bignesse, sometimes eightie, sometimes a hundred Hogs- 

 heads." The "Bearded Whale" is said in the same connection to yield 

 "betweene one hundred and one hundred and tw-entie Hogsheads of Oyle." 1 



In Edge's account of his "ten seuerall Voyages" (1611-1622), he gives 

 "The Description of the seuerall sorts of Whales, wdth the manner of killing 

 them," in which this same "second sort of Whale" is thus described: "The 

 second sorte of W 7 hale is called Sarda, of the same colour as the former [the 

 Greenland or "Bearded" Whale, here called "Grand-bay Whale," "from 

 Grand-bay in Newfoundland, as hauirig there beene first killed"], but 

 somewhat lesser, and the Finnes [baleen] likewise lesser, and yields in Oyle 

 according to his bignesse, sometimes seuentie hogsheads, or eightie hogs- 

 heads. This Whale hath naturally growing upon his backe, w r hite things 

 like vnto Barnacles." 2 The "Grand-bay W T hale" is here said to yield 

 "about one hundred hogsheads of Oyle, and some fiue hundred Finnes." 

 The "Sarda" is characterized as being smaller, with shorter baleen, and as 

 yielding much less oil than the Greenland W'hale, and as having "white 

 things" growing on its back, the last, as will appear later, a distinction of 

 much importance. 



Martens, writing some fifty-two years later, briefly alludes to this species 

 in the same comparative way. He says (I here quote an early English 

 translation): "The Whales of the North Cape (they are so called, because 

 they are caught between Spitzbergen and Norway) being not so big, there- 

 fore do not yield so much Fat as those of Spitsbergen, for those of the North 

 Cape you shall not fill above ten, twenty, or thirty Cardels of Fat; the 

 middling sort of those of Spitzbergen yield commonly seventy, eighty or 

 ninety, and they are about fifty or sixty foot long." 3 



Zorgdrager devotes a chapter 4 to the Nordkaper, besides making passing 

 allusions to it elsewhere. He gives us little information, however, about its 



1 Purchas, his Pilgrims, III, 1625, p. 710. 



2 Purchas, his Pilgrims, III, 1625, p. 471. 



3 An Account of several Late Voyages and Discoveries. London, 1 711, [pt. ii,] p. 151 . For 

 the original see Martens's Spitzbergische oder Groenlandische Reise-Beschreibung, gethan im 

 Jahr 1671. Hamburg, 1675, p. 106. 



4 Bloeyende Opkomst der Aloude en Hedendaagsche Groenlandsche Visschery. Amster- 

 dam, 1720, pp. 91-98. 



