M7^ Lillie, Notes on the Larger Cetacea. 349 



result has been that modern whaling centres have sprung up in 

 Newfoundland, Japan and elsewhere. 



The staple quarry of the northern whale fishery is the widely 

 distributed family of the Balaenopteridae, the last of the larger 

 Cetacea, the Sperm whale and Balaena hiscayensis being also taken 

 when they can be found. The Balaenopteridae are still fairly 

 plentiful but, at the present rate of slaughter and with the 

 rapid spread in the use of the deadly Svend Foyn harpoon, the 

 day of their extinction cannot be far distant, as Mr Shipley pointed 

 out in his presidential address to Section D at the Winnipeg 

 meeting of the British Association. 



The Norwegian method of whaling is briefly as follows. A 

 station is established on shore or afloat to which three or four 

 strongly built steamers from 15 to 90 tons burden are attached. 

 Each has a harpoon gun mounted in her bows. These go to sea 

 in search of whales and stay out from two to ten days at a time. 

 When a steamer gets within 40 yards of a whale the harpoon is 

 fired, and the shell at the point of the harpoon is so arranged that 

 when the harpoon enters the body of the animal it bursts and the 

 animal is generally killed at once ; but this is not always the case. 



Mr Southwell records an instance of a whale, Balaenoptera 

 sihhaldii, towing a Newfoundland whaling steamer for a distance 

 of 122 miles, the screw being reversed at full speed the whole 

 time. After a pursuit which lasted 26 hours the animal was 

 exhausted and killed. 



The Balaenidae and Physeter float when dead; but the 

 Balaenopteridae always sink, probably on account of their having 

 less oil. The Norwegians have overcome this difficulty by an 

 ingenious device. The dead whale is brought to the side of 

 the steamer and inflated with air. An iron pipe is thrust into 

 the body cavity and is connected by india-rubber tubing to a 

 pump in the engine-room. When sufficient air has been pumped 

 into the body cavity to render the animal buoyant, the pipe is 

 withdrawn and the wound is plugged with a piece of tarred wood. 

 In this condition the dead whale is kept afloat, and several can be 

 towed to the factory at one time by a whaling steamer. The air 

 thus pumped in keeps the carcase distended until it is landed and 

 ready to be cut up, its volume being sometimes added to by the 

 gaseous products of decomposition. As soon, however, as the dis- 

 tended body is pierced by the flensing knife the imprisoned air 

 escapes with great violence and portions of the viscera are torn 

 away and shot out of the body cavity. The two foetal whales 

 which I obtained this year at the Irish whaling station were 

 extracted in a mutilated condition from among the scattered 

 remains of organs thus expelled from the body cavities of their 

 mothers. 



