34 ESCHRICHT AND REINHARDT 



expedition to Spitzbcrgen in the year 1011,^ and in the account of this and some subsequent 

 voyages, which j\lr. Edge wrote himself." It is true that this information does not come down 

 to us immediately from the Basques, but yet it may be traced back to them, for the whale- 

 fishery of the time was almost exclusively in their hands ; and just as the English Company 

 was obliged to fetch all the six harpooners necessary to the expedition from St. Jean de Luz, it 

 cannot be doubted but that the description of the different Cetaceans procured by the company 

 for ]Mr. Edge's information had originally been given by Basques. This is also proved by the 

 names of the whales,'' even though they may have been somewhat modified by having been 

 written in English ; and the circumstance that Mr. Edge afterwards, although on his voyages he 

 had so much opportunity of procuring additional information from his Basquean harpooners, 

 only repeats the former list that had been communicated to him, with one or two slight altera- 

 tions, seems to show that it really did state correctly the whole amount of the knowledge of 

 whales of which the whalers were in possession at that time. 



In the instructions given to Mr. Edge, in 1611, the " Sarde " is mentioned in the following 

 manner : " The second sort of whale is called Sarda, of the same colour and fashion as the 

 former []iamely, the Bearded whale or Greenland whale], but somewhat lesser and the 

 finues not above one fathom long, and yeeldeth in oyle, according to his bignesse, sometimes 

 eightie, sometimes a hundred hogsheads."* In Mr. Edge's account of the different sorts 

 of whales^ written about ten years later, this description is repeated with several alterations, 

 and is to the following effect : — " The second sort of whale is called Sarda, of the same colour as 

 the former, but somewhat lesser, and the finnes likewise lesser, and yeelds in oyle according to 

 his bignesse, sometimes seventie hogsheads or eightie hogsheads. This whale has naturally 

 growing upon his backe white things like unto barnacles." These two descriptions, taken 

 together, are very interesting. For at that time the " Sarde " was fully as well-known to the 

 whalers as the Greenland whale ; it had, indeed, hitherto been the principal object of their 

 persecutions in the Northern Atlantic ; on a point so important to them as the length of the 

 whalebone their evidence must certainly be considered to be perfectly trustworthy. Thus, when 

 the length of the whalebone of the Sarde is stated to be only six feet, we have not only an 

 additional proof of the difi'erence of species between this whale and the Greenland whale, and 

 a more exact confirmation of the statements of the Icelanders (less to be depended upon in 

 that particular), but it also becomes very probable that the Sarde, or, as the Icelanders called it. 

 Sletbag, was the very same species as the right-whale, which, at Dudley's time and long after- 

 wards, was caught near the coast of New England. No less important is Mr. Edge's state- 

 ment that the " Sarde " " had growing upon his backe white things like unto barnacles," or, in 

 other words, was overgrown with Cirripeds. Thus, it was already a well-known fact that this 

 whale is much troubled by these animals, and on account of the importance which, as one of the 

 authors proved many years ago, must be ascribed to these parasites in a zoodiagnostical point of 



^ ' Purchas, his Pilgrimes,' part iii. London, 1625, p. 709, 710. 

 - 1. c. p. 462 — 472. 



^ Their names are : 1. The Bearded Whale; 2. Sarda j 3. Trunipa; 4. Otta Sotta ; 5. Gibarta; 

 6. Sedena ; 7. Sedena negro ; 8. Sewria. 

 * ' Purchas,' 1. c. p. 710. 

 ° ' Purchas,' 1. c. p. 471. 



