BRITISH MAMMALS 
it of ' harpoon,' and when the first English seamen under Thomas Edge 
went north to Spitzbergen in 1611 to hunt the Greenland Whale, they 
found it necessary to take six Basque harpooners among the crew. 
When feeding, the Nordcaper opens its capacious mouth as it pro- 
ceeds slowly under the surface of the sea, then closing the jaws when the 
inrush of water has drawn in a multitude of minute crustaceans, it expels 
the liquid through the baleen blades, while the food remains on the 
tongue. The amount of nourishment thus taken in must be vast, to 
supply the needs of such an animal. 
The old-fashioned method of hunting the whale with hand-thrown 
harpoons from boats in touch with a vessel, has now been superseded 
by an entirely new system, first practised by the Norwegians, when 
Svend Foyn invented a new weapon in 1864 in order to cope with 
the dangerous Rorquals. This was a heavy harpoon, with an explosive 
charge, attached to a strong rope and fired from a gun mounted in the bow 
of a steamship of moderate size. This method was found to be very 
efficient. 
According to Scoresby a harpoon-gun was in use as far back as 
1 73 1, but this was discharged from a small boat at close quarters and 
was not altogether a success. 
In modern whaling, if the animal is not killed by the shock caused 
by the harpoon, it is soon brought to the surface and killed by being 
lanced from a boat. 
According to Millais [Mammals of Great 'Britain and Ire/and), 
" Right Whales bring forth in the month of March every other year, 
the young being suckled for twelve months." 
For the drawing of this species in the Plate, and for some of the others, 
I have used the models in the British Museum (Natural History). 
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