lEE A3IERICAN WHALE-FISHERY. 241 



Provincetown has ever been foremost with her numerous fleet of plum-puddingers, 

 or, in whaling phrase, "plum-pu-dn-rs," which are small vessels, employed on 

 short voyages in the Atlantic Ocean. New Londoners have been, and still 

 are, renowned for prosecuting the Right Whale fishery, in the rough waters 

 of high latitudes, and pursuing the Sea Elephant about the forbidding shores of 

 Kerguelen's Land, the Crozets, and Hurd's Islands, situated far south in the Indian 

 Ocean ; and also in contending with the northern ice and snow of Davis Strait 

 and Hudson's Bay, in searcli of the Bovvhead and the White Whale. Sag Harbor 

 and Stonington likewise employed many of their ships in the northern and south- 

 ern Right Whale fishery ; and New Bedford, in the course of her absorption of the 

 greater portion of the whaling commerce of the LTnited States, prosecuted the 

 enterprise in its various branches all over the ocean world, by availing herself of 

 the services of many of the best whaling- masters and officers from other quarters, 

 thus coinbiniug the highest energy and skill for the successful prosecution of the 

 fishery. But, with all the judicious management of the merchants, and tlic unpar- 

 alleled vigor and tact put forth by the seamen, our whale-fishery, as previously 

 stated, has been for years on the decline; and the first famous whaling- port of 

 America — Nantucket — which once boasted of her hundred fine ships, has now 

 disposed of her last whaler — the E. L. Bardow — at that port of recruit, Payta, 

 which is as familiar to all sperm- whalemen as thnt of Tumbez, where they went 

 for supplies of sweet potatoes, after obtaining their onions at the former place. 

 Sag Harbor, which in 1850 had twenty -three whalers, the majority of which were 

 of large class, now has only two small brigs, which are employed on the Atlantic. 

 Stonington, Mystic, Grreenport, Warren, Cold Spring, Seppican, Wareham, Fall 

 River, Falmouth, Holmes' Hole, Providence, Newport, Lynn, Quincy, Mattapoisett, 

 Yarmouth, and Somerset, altogether mustered, in 1850, a fleet of ninety -two sails; 

 but, according to the Whakmens ShijJp'mg List, published at New Bedford, February 

 4th, 1873, there is not a single vessel engaged in whaling from any one of those 

 ports. Of the forty -eight vessels comprising the New London fleet of 1850, there 

 are left on the list of February 4th, 1873, only twenty. Fairhaven, in 1850, had 

 forty -six whaling -vessels, of which only five are retained in the business. Prov- 

 incetown's squadron of Atlantic cruisers, in 1850, numbered sixteen vessels, which 

 tonnaged in the aggregate 1,871 tons; it had in February, 1873, nineteen vessels, 

 whose capacity amounted to 1,561 tons. Bdgartowu, in 1850, had five large 

 whalers in the Pacific, and one brig in the Atlantic; in 1873, only three remained, 

 two of which w-ere in port ; and Westport, which had a squadron of fifteen vessels 

 in 1850, now (1873) has only eight. The great fleet of New Bedford, in 1850, num- 



Makine Mammals. — 3L 



