1908.] Allen, The North Atlantic Right Whale. 285 



but only guess' d at by the Length of the Bone in their Mouths. The Whale- 

 bone, so called, grows in the upper Jaw on each Side, and is sometimes six 

 or seven Feet in Length. A good large Whale has yielded a thousand Weight 

 of Bone. 'Tis thought by some, that the hairy Part of the Whale-bone, 

 and which is next to the Tongue, serves in the Nature of a Strainer of their 

 Food .... The Entrails of this Whale are made and situated much like those 

 of an Ox, and their Scalps are sometimes found covered with Thousands 

 of Sea-lice. One of these Whales has yielded one hundred and thirty 

 Barrels of Oil, and near twenty out of the Tongue" (7. c., pp. 256, 257). 



William Douglas, in his 'Summary, Historical and Political,. . . .of the 

 British Settlements in North America' (London, 1760), gives an account 

 of the New England Whale-fishery, in the course of which he says: ". . . . 

 The New-England true whale is the same with the European North-cape 

 whales, are not easily killed, being agile and very wild; the Dutch do not 

 fish them. . . .Upon the coast of New England, whales go northward from 

 the middle of March to the middle of May" (op. cit., pp. 297, 298). In 

 another connection he again refers to the subject, incidentally comparing 

 the New England ''true" Whale with the northern or Greenland W T hale, 

 but evidently not distinguishing them as two species; yet his comparison 

 serves, taken in connection with the passages above-quoted, to throw into 

 relief the differences between the two. It also shows that a little allowance 

 for exaggeration is to be made in reference to the length given for the "bone" 

 of the New England "true" Whale. He says : "The New England whalers 

 distinguish ten or twelve different species of the whale-kind; the most 

 beneficial is the black whale, whale-bone whale, or true whale, as they call it; 

 in Davis' s-straits, in N. lat. 70 D. and upwards they are very large; some 

 yield 150 puncheons, being 400 or 500 barrels of oil, and bone of eighteen 

 feet and upwards; they are a heavy loggy fish, and so do not fight, as the 

 New-England whalers express it; they are easily struck and fastened, but 

 not above one third of them are recovered; by sinking and bewildering 

 themselves under the ice, two thirds of them are lost irrecoverably; the 

 whale-bone whales killed upon the coast of New England, Terra de Labra- 

 dore, and entrance of Davis-straits, are smaller; do yield not exceeding 120 

 to 130 barrels of oil, and of nine feet bone 140 Ib. wt. they are wilder more 

 agile and do fight" (op. cit., p. 56). 



Hector St. John's 'Letters from an American Farmer' (London, 1782), 

 contain an account of the Nantucket whale-fishery, in which he gives, "the 

 names and the principal characteristics of the various species of whales 

 known to these people." He says "the river St. Lawrence whale" is the 

 only one with which he was well acquainted, which he describes as "seventy- 

 five feet long, sixteen deep, twelve in the length of its bone, which commonly 



