62 SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRLTLSH SEAS. 



article, that such is not the case, the habits of the two animals, as well as the 

 localities frequented by each, being totally distinct. They have, therefore, 

 described the more southern form as a distinct species, under the name of 

 Balcena biscaycnsis, or the Atlantic Right- Whale, the " Sarde " of the 

 French, "Nordkaper" of the Dutch, and " Sletbag " of the Iceland whalers 

 of former days. 



As early as the twelfth century, long before the whale-fishery was prose- 

 cuted in the Arctic seas, a brisk trade was carried on by the Basque fishermen 

 from the Biscayan ports. That this fishery must have been of considerable 

 importance, in a mercantile point of view, there can be no doubt, from the 

 numerous references to be met with in early records ; for instance, in 1261, a 

 tithe was laid upon the tongues of all Whales imported into Bayonne, where 

 they formed a much-esteemed article of food, and in 1338 a duty of ^6 a 

 Whale on those brought into the port of Biarritz was relinquished by Edward 

 III. to Peter de Puyanne for services rendered; these and other Hke records 

 extant show that for a long period this branch of industry was briskly prose- 

 cuted. Gradually, however, the Whales became more and more scarce, and 

 the hardy Basque seamen, after following their prey to Newfoundland and 

 Iceland, shortly after the discovery of Spitsbergen in 1596 found their all-but- 

 lost occupation suddenly revive; the "Sletbag" was left behind, but the 

 home of the true Greenland Whale, a much more valuable animal, was for the 

 first time invaded, and that species, which then abounded in the seas sur- 

 rounding Spitzbergen, speedily became the object of the whalers' attack; 

 many vessels were fitted out for its pursuit which carried Biscayan har- 

 pooners, the crews, also, generally consisting, in part, of these hardy seamen. 



So recently as the close of the last century, the Atlantic Right-whale was 

 not unfrequent in the North Atlantic ; it was regularly caught on the coast of 

 Nantuckit, and occasionally by the American Whalers on the coast of 

 Iceland ; it has, however, now become very rare. Professors Eschricht and 



