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



right- whale), but we learn also, on the unequivocal authority of contempo- 

 rary persons, on the one hand, that this was the whale at that time most 

 commonly caught near the coast of Iceland, especially by French and 

 Spanish whalers, who in the seventeenth century and still long afterwards 

 every summer used to carry on a lucrative whale-fishery in the Icelandic 

 sea, and on the other hand, that this 'Sletbag' was an animal very different 

 from the North or Greenland whale." They later quote from an Icelandic 

 manuscript supposed to have been written about the middle of the eight- 

 eenth century a passage about the Sletbag, and finally summarize the 

 matter as follows: "At all events, so much seems finally proved by these 

 statements of ancient and more modern dates, that the Icelanders have at 

 all times agreed in regarding the 'Sletbag' as an animal quite different 

 from the North whale, or the Greenland whale, being, in fact, a right-whale 

 of inferior size, and with much shorter whalebone; and, at the same time, 

 it is proved beyond all possibility of doubt, that this 'Sletbag' of the Ice- 

 landers was the very one that was hunted by the Basques in the summer, 

 in the sea near Iceland, during the long period of at least two centuries." 1 



Respecting the occurrence of the Sarda or North-caper about New- 

 foundland and southward, the annals of the New England whale-fishery 

 afford items of information of special interest. In Paul Dudley's well- 

 known account of the New England Whales and Whale-fishery, written 

 doubtless as early as 1724 and published in 1726, 2 we have a rather detailed 

 account of what he calls "The Right Whale," which runs as follows: "But 

 here I would have it noted, that the following Account respects only such 

 Whales, as are found on the Coast of New England. 



"And of these there are divers Sorts or Kinds. As first, The Right, or 

 Whalebone Whale is a large Fish, measuring sixty or seventy Feet in Length, 

 and very bulky, having no Scales, but a soft fine smooth Skin, no Fins, but 

 only one on each Side, from five to eight Feet long, which they are not ob- 

 served to use, but only in turning themselves, unless while young, and 

 carried by the Dam on the Flukes of their Tails; when with those Fins they 

 clasp about her Small, and so hold themselves on. This Fish, when first 

 brought forth, is about twenty Feet long, and of little Worth, but then the 

 Dam is very fat. At a year old, when they are called Short-heads, they are 

 very fat, and yield to fifty Barrels of Oil, but by that Time the Dam is very 

 poor, and term'd a Dry-skin, and won't yield more than thirty Barrels of Oil 

 tho' of large Bulk. At two Years old, they are called Stunts, being stunted 

 after weaning, and will then yield generally from twenty four to twenty eight 

 Barrels. After this, they are term'd Scull-fish, their Age not being known, 



1 Memoirs on Recent Cetacea, pp. 32-33. 



2 Phil. Trans., XXXIII, 1724-1725 (1726), 



pp. 256-269. 



