166 



THE AMEBIC AN NATUBALIST [VoL.LV 



This account is obviously an exaggeration of some 

 story about the shark, but ivCil was soon identified with 

 the whale, as appears from the later Arabic sources. A 

 century later Mas'udi wrote: 



There is a fisli in this sea called el-Owal, which is from four to five 

 hundred 'Omari cubits long; these are the cubits in use in this sea. 

 The usual leno-th of this fish is one hundred perches. Generally the head 

 of the whale is out of the water; and when it powerfully ejects water, 

 it .pushes into the air more than one bowshot high. The vessels are 

 afraid of it by day and night, and they beat drums and wooden poles 

 to drive it away. This fish drives with its tail and fins other fish into 

 its open mouth, and they pass down its throat with the stream of water. 

 When the whale sins God sends a fish about one cubit long called esh- 

 shak {al-leshek, as-sal), it adheres to the root of its tail and the whale 

 has no means to make itself free from it. It goes therefore to the 

 bottom of the sea and beats itself to death; its dead body floats on the 

 water and looks like a great mountain. The fish called esh-shak, ad- 

 heres frequently to the whale. The whales notwithstanding their size, 

 do not approach vessels; and they take flight when they see this little 

 fish, for it is their destruction.^ ^ 



Idrlsi merely said that in the Sea of Oman the wali^ 

 which is of white color and one hundred cubits in length, 

 is usually accompanied by the small leslick, which kills 

 it.^ Ad-Damiri definitely identifies the large fish with 

 the hdl, the whale. 



a fish about a cubit in length, which attaches itself to its ear, and the 

 hal seeing no means of freeing itself from it, goes down to the bottom 

 of the sea and strikes its head on the ground until it dies, after which 



the East Coast of Africa are generally on the look-out for it. When 

 they find it, they plunge harpoons on it and drag it to the shore where 

 they cut open its belly and take out of it ambergris.* 



The important point in all these stories, which ob- 

 viously emanate from the same original account, is that 



2 A. SpronRer, "El M.'i-^Tnli s iristorical Enry,-l,,,„.li,-i. (>ntitlo.l '^\oa(\■ 

 0W3 of Gold and Mines of Gems,' " Lmuloii, 1841. Vol. T. p. 2r,;^. f. 



3 P. A. Jaul)ert, "Geographic d'Edrisi," Paris, 1S36, V„l. T, p. 63. 



4 Ad-Damiri 's "Hayat al-IIayawan" (a zoological lexicon), translated by 

 A. S. G. J'ayakar, London, 1906, Vol. I, p. 237. 



