WILD ANIMALS YIELDING LEATHER, HORN, ETC. 315 



Adult Greenland whales now attain a length of 50 or 60 feet, 

 but much larger specimens were often captured in the palmy 

 days of the whaling industry. The average product from a 

 single animal is said to be about 1 5 tons of oil and 1 5 cwts. of 

 whalebone. The former, like that of seals, is valuable as a lubri- 

 cant and for other technical purposes, but the discovery of 

 petroleum has greatly lessened the value of this and other animal 

 fats as a source of artificial heat and light. Whalebone is be- 

 coming increasingly expensive in proportion to the diminishing 

 supplies, and is still in great demand for a number of purposes, 

 owing to its toughness, durability, and elasticity. It is now largely 

 replaced by steel, as, e.g., for umbrella-frames and corsets. 



The Southern " Right " Whale {B. mistralis), which closely 

 resembles the Greenland form, though its baleen is not of such 

 good quality, has a very wide area of distribution, but is absent 

 from the Arctic Ocean. The chief interest attaching to it is 

 that at one time it was common in the Bay of Biscay, where it 

 formed the object of an important industry, especially to the 

 Basques of North Spain. Some points relating to this are thus 

 summarized by Beddard (in The Cambridge Natural History) : — 

 "Among the small towns which fringe the bay it is very common 

 to find the whale incorporated in the armorial bearings. ' Over 

 the portal of the first old house in the steep street of Guetaria ', 

 writes Sir Clements Markham (P. Z. S., 1881), 'there is a shield 

 of arms consisting of whales amid waves of the sea. At Motrico 

 the town arms consist of a whale in the sea harpooned, and with 

 a boat with men holding the line.' Plenty of other such ex- 

 amples testify to the prevalence of the whaling industry on these 

 adjoining coasts of Spain and France. It appears that though 

 the fishery began much earlier — even in the ninth century — the 

 first actual document relating to it dates from the year 11 50. It 

 is in the shape of privileges granted by Sancho the Wise to the 

 city of San Sebastian. The trade was still very flourishing in the 

 sixteenth century. Rondeletius the naturalist described Bayonne 

 as the centre of the trade, and tells us that the flesh, especially 

 of the tongue, was exposed for sale as food in the markets. 

 M. Fischer {Ades Linn. Soc. Bordeaux, 1881), who, as well as 

 Sir Clements Markham, has given an important account of the 

 whaling industry on the Basque shores, quotes an account of 

 the methods pursued in the sixteenth century. It was at Biarritz 



