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



According to Markham 1 and other authorities, the Basque shore whale- 

 fishery, as already stated, was a well-established industry as early as the 

 twelfth century, and probably by the tenth, and was pursued so persistently 

 that by the middle of the seventeenth century the whales had become so 

 scarce off the coast of Spain and France that these pioneers in the whaling 

 industry had long before this date begun to make long voyages in its pursuit, 

 transferring their activities to the seas about Iceland and Newfoundland, to 

 which they began to make voyages in the last half of the sixteenth century. 

 It was also hunted between Norway and Spitsbergen so incessantly by the 

 Norwegian, Dutch and German whalers during the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries that it had also here become scarce, and its pursuit practically 

 abandoned for that of the Greenland Whale. By the middle of the eight- 

 eenth century it is a matter of record 2 that the New England whalemen re- 

 paired to the Newfoundland whaling grounds in pursuit of whales, owing 

 to the great decrease in numbers of the present species along the Atlantic- 

 coast of the United States. 



The pursuit of this species along the coast of New England and the Mid- 

 dle States began in a small way with the earliest settlement of the country 

 by Europeans, at first in boats along the shore, and later in small vessels 

 in the open sea, as is shown by the following excerps from various author- 

 ities. A few whales, in addition to stranded or drift whales, were taken 

 in Massachusetts Bay as early as 1631, and whaling began to be prosecuted 

 at Martha's Vineyard in 1652, and at Nantucket in 1672; it was first estab- 

 lished at Southampton, on Long Island, in 1644, and at Easthampton in 

 1651, and had become quite active by 1688, and was subjected to legal regu- 

 lation in 1672. The whaling season began early in November and ended 

 usually by the middle or toward the last of March, although whales were 

 sometimes seen as early as the middle of October and as late as April. From 

 1720 on, whaling was carried on in small vessels in the open sea, as well as in 

 boats from the shore. By 1750, the whales had become so few that pursuit 

 of them as an industry was practically abandoned, but they have been taken 

 at various points along the coast from Massachusetts Bay to North Carolina, 

 at intervals, from this date till the present time, by boats from the shore, 

 particularly from the southern side of Long Island and on the coast of North 

 Carolina, one or two, and sometimes more, being taken in a single season, 

 but usually only at intervals of several years. 



Respecting its former abundance along the New England coast, the 

 following passages are of interest. 



1 A. Howard Clark, I. c., pp. 969-976. 



2 C7., especially, Alexander Starbuck's 'History of the American Whale Fishery from its 

 Sp.?5i8, plTvi. f thC U " S - Commissi ner of Fish and Fisheries, 



