378 



ACCOUNT OF A BELUGA 



Scoresby never observed it lower than Jan Mayen's 

 Land. That gentleman informs me, that it is very 

 seldom seen among the ice ; but frequents places 

 where the water is clearest and smoothest. Thirty 

 or forty belugas are often observed in a herd toge- 

 ther. They are very seldom pursued by the whale- 

 fishers, because they find it difficult to strike them, 

 on account of the great rapidity of their motions, 

 and because, to our adventurers, they are compara- 

 tively of little value when killed, 



Sir Charles Gieseck6, in the article Greenland, 

 lately published in the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, 

 gives some particulars concerning the beluga. It 

 comes in herds to the coast of West Greenland 

 every year about the end of November, its arrival 

 being hastened by the prevalence of storms from 

 the south-west. It is, next to the seal, the most 

 useful animal to the Greenlanders. The flesh is 

 said to be somewhat similar to that of beef, though 

 oily ; and the " skin," we are told, is * e eaten either 

 raw, dried, or boiled :" By skin, however, is proba- 

 bly meant the thick white substance analogous to a 

 rete mucosum above mentioned*. The belugas 

 are described m " not shy," but often tumbling 

 themselves round near the Greenlanders' boats.' 1 



* Crantz evidently uses the term in this sense, when he 

 says, " The white wrinkled skin is the thickness of a finger." 



Crantz, 8vo. edi$- vol. i. p. 114. 



