388 NIMROD OF THE SEA; OB, 



A peculiar feature in right-whaliDg is the considerable 

 number wbich sink on being killed. This rarely occurs with 

 the sperm-whale. With the hump-back it is the rule, and 

 therefore this fishing is carried on in shallow sounds and 

 bays. On putting the question, "Why do right whales 

 sink ?" scarcely two men will give the same reason in reply. 

 Captain West, when master of the Adeline Gibhs, in conver- 

 sation with two Arctic whalemen, at Maui, gave the follow- 

 ing answer: "To lance a right whale over the shoulder- 

 blade, directing the lance downward, will kill it in the short- 

 est time ; but he will be almost certain to sink. Such a 

 wound will be followed by a rushing escape of air, manifest- 

 ing itself in large and continuous bubbles, rising through 

 the water. When this occurs the whale is certain to sink." 

 Therefore, he holds to the theory that whales are furnished 

 with a sound, or air bladder, like fish, and that through no 

 other cause than injury to this bladder could the whale set- 

 tle instantly as it does. The two captains above mentioned 

 stated that on their last cruises one had taken nine whales, 

 without one sinking. The other had sunk eight whales, 

 and prided himself on the fatal thi-ust of his lance over the 

 ' shoulder. 



It is also a curious fact in the history of whaling, that 

 when our right-whalemen first met the Greenland whale in 

 the Sea of Okhotsk, they did not recognize it as a whale 

 worth the trouble of taking, but classed it among the hump- 

 backs, or " sulphur-bottoms." Captain West informed me 

 of a captain, whose name has escaped' me, who, when he firet 

 visited the Northern seas, found himself surrounded by what 

 he thought worthless whales, and so missed his chance to fill 

 up at once. The whale he saw is known among American 

 whalemen as the bow-head, on account of the higher arch 

 of the upper jaw, as compared with the right whale. Large 

 as is the head of the latter, that of the' bow-head is larger 



