NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. i2r 



tails. The mother brings forth but' one or two young ones at a 

 birth; they are nine or ten feet long when firft produced : they' 

 fuck the darn's teats, which are fituated near the aperture, on 

 the belly. When the young are tired in their courfe, the dam 

 takes them betwixt her great' fins, and fwims away with them 

 immediately. Under the ilin the Whale is covered with fat two u,- e and &> 

 or three feet thick, out of which the oil is extracted • and under vice ' 

 the fat is the flefh of a reddifh colour, which is fometimes eaten 

 tho' not much admired ; but the tongue and the tail are reckoned* 

 delicate food. 



When the Whale grows old, weeds, Mufcles, and other foul- 

 nefles, gather upon its back, and always {ticking clofe to it, caufes 

 a very ill fcent, which conftantly attends an old Whale. 



Their food is in general certain fmall infecls, which float uponKod. 

 the water in great heaps, and are not larger than flies i befides 

 thefe, they eat various forts of fmall Fifh, particularly Herrings, 

 which they drive together in great fhoals, and then fwallow in 

 prodigious quantities at a time*. The Whale commonly goes 

 under a large fhoal of Herrings, and at times opens his mouth* 

 and fucks in all he can. The water, which he takes in with them, 

 as has been before obferved, he ipouts out of thole apertures in the 

 head ; but the Fifh and infers remain behind ; and fometimes he 

 fwallows fuch vaft quantities, that his belly will hardly contain 

 them, and is even ready to burlt, which caufes the Whale to fet 

 up a hideous roar. 



According to fome accounts, the Whale often lofes his life by 

 the violent Siftention f . On this occafion, or, when he is pur- 

 fued by his enemy, the Speckhuggeren, as lhall be mentioned 

 hereafter, he makes fo terrible a none that one would imagine it 

 to be a long clap of thunder. The fame unaccountable noife is 

 heard if he accidentally falls into the fifhermen's herring-nets j 

 and tho' he ealily carries them away, yet he is very much affe&ed 

 by the fright. 



* Docl. Nic. Horrebrow fays that the Whale fwallows up whole heaps of Cod alfo, 

 m his account of Iceland lately publiflied, §. 54, p. 185, where, among other things^ 

 he relates an: extraordinary accident that happen'd to a Whale that was drove towards 

 the fhore in time of flood, and could not get back again with the ebb ; fo that the 

 peafants furprized and killed him ; and, exclufive of the Whale, got a booty of 600 

 Cod-fiflij all alive, in his belly, which he had fwallowed juft before. 



+ That the firft, and perhaps the laft circumftance, was known to the poet Silius 

 Itahcus, may be concluded from his words : 



- Rapidi fera bellua Ponti 



Per longam fterili ad partus j aetata profundo, 

 JEftuat & luftrans natam fub gurgite prsedam 

 Abforbet late permixtum verrriibus asquor. 



Part IL I i j t 



