BRITISH MAMMALS 
an experienced leader whom they will blindly follow even to their death. 
This trait in their character is taken advantage of by the Shetlanders 
and other islanders, who by watching the approach of a herd as it enters 
some sound or bay, organise great drives of the animals, and cutting them 
off from the sea, cause large numbers to run aground. They are then 
stabbed and done to death while struggling helplessly in shallow water. 
This method of taking the Pilot Whale goes back for centuries, an 
old Danish writer of the seventeenth century having recorded about a 
thousand of these animals taken in two places in the Faroes in 1664. 
In Quendale Bay, Shetland, fifteen hundred and forty were killed in 
about two hours on September 22, 1845, and many others since. 
This species owes its Shetland name of ' Ca'ing ' Whale or ' Driving 
Whale ' to its habit of blindly and persistently following its leader. 
It chiefly feeds on cuttlefish, but various fishes are also eaten. 
The oil and flesh are of some value; according to Harvie- Brown and 
Buckley [A Fauna of the Orkney Islands) one hundred and ninety-five 
Pilot Whales taken near Flotta in the Orkneys were sold for ^500 12s. 6d. 
90 
