160 
CHASE AND CAPTURE 
its tail, or rearing its enormous head, and threatening 
destruction with its formidable jaw, (see cut, p. 154). 
After being struck with the harpoon or lance, females 
and young bulls make the most violent efforts to escape, 
and being remarkably quick in their actions they fre- 
quently afford considerable danger and trouble. Those 
young bulls which yield about forty barrels of oil, and 
are consequently called forty-barrel bulls, are perhaps 
the most difficult to destroy, and sometimes make great 
havoc among the men and boats. 
The large whales, such as make eighty or more 
barrels, not being nearly so active, and probably not 
feeling so acutely, are generally, by expert whalers, 
easily killed, and with less damage to those employed 
than the smaller ones. But these enormous creatures 
are sometimes known to turn upon their persecutors 
with unbounded fury, destroying everything that meets 
them in their course — sometimes by the powerful blows 
of their flukes, and sometimes attacking with the jaw 
and head. Accidents frequently occur from the violent 
convulsive movements of a wounded whale, when suffer- 
ing the last pangs of his numerous and deep wounds. 
When the lance has been used effectively, so as to wound 
some important vital organ, the unfortunate animal fre- 
quently throws up blood in large quantities from the 
blow-hole — becomes convulsed— lashing the waves 
violently with its tail— passing very rapidly along- 
tinging the water with his blood as he swims ; and it is 
a curious fact, that under these circumstances he always 
describes the segment of a circle : in this state the whale 
