NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 12l 



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

 birth ; they are nine or ten feet long when fir ft produced : they 

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

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

 takes them betwixt her great fins,, and f vims away with them 

 immediately. Under the Ikin the Whale is covered with fat two ur e and f er - 

 or three feet thick, out of which the oil is extracted ; and under vics - 

 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 uponits back, and always flicking clofe to it, caufes 

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



Their food is in general certain fmall infects, which float uponFcod. 

 the water m great heaps, and are not larger than flies : befides 

 thefe, they eat various forts of fmall Eifli, 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 fpouts out of thofe apertures in the 

 head j but the Fifh and infe&s remain behind ; and fometimes he 

 fwallows fuch vaft quantities, that his belly will hardly contain 

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

 up a hideous roar. 



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

 the violent diftentionf. On this occafion, or, when he is purl 

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

 hereafter, he makes fo terrible a noife 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 • 

 and tho' he eafily carries them away, yet he is very much affected' 

 by the fright. 



• Dod. Nic. Horrebrow fays that the Whale fwallows up whole heaps of Cod alfn 

 m his account of Iceland lately publifhed, §. 54 , p. i8 5 , P whe«,^S^ 

 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 he 

 peafantsfurprized and killed him, and, exclufive of "the Whale, got a booty of 600 

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

 J That the firft, and perhaps the laft circumflance, was known to the poet Silius 

 Itahcus, may be concluded from his words : 



Rapidi fera bellua Ponti 



Per longam fterili ad partus jadata profundo 

 iEftuat & luftrans natatn fub gurgite prsedam 

 Abforbet late permixtum vermibus sequor 



Part II. ! j/ It 



