EARLY HISTORY OF WHALING 87 



(1772) and Leems 1 (1767), the former dealing with 

 the Icelandic names for whales and the latter with 

 Danish Lapland. 



According to Von Troll the natives of Iceland 

 divided whales into two classes, those with, and 

 those without, teeth (tusks). 



Those without teeth are divided further into 

 skidis fiskur or smooth bellied and reydar fiskur or 

 wrinkle bellied (roughly, True Whales and Finners). 

 Among the skidis fiskur, who have whalebone 

 instead of teeth, the Slettbakr (Balana biscayensis) 

 whose back is flat, is the largest, and some have been 

 caught one hundred yards ( ?) in length. 



The Hnufubakr (probably Megaptera boops) has 

 a hump on his back, and is next in size, from seventy 

 to eighty yards (?) long. Of all the known whales 

 the Steipereidur (Balcenoptem sibbaldi), which 

 belongs to the class of the reydar fiskur, is thought 

 to be the largest, as there are some one hundred and 

 twenty yards (?) in length. Then follow the Hrafn 

 reydur and the Andarnefia. 2 They are all considered 

 as very dainty food, and the Icelanders say the flesh 

 has the taste of beef. 



The whales which have teeth instead of whalebone 

 are also divided into two classes, those which are 

 eatable and those which are not. The names of 

 these are given but not sufficient detail to enable one 

 to identify them with certainty. 



1 Knud Leems, " An Account of the Laplanders of Finmark," 

 originally published in Danish and Latin, Copenhagen, 1767. 



3 Lindeman states that the Andarnefia is the Bottlenose, which 

 is, however, a toothed whale. 



