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Art. VII . — Extracts from Dr Hibbert's Description of the 
Shetland Islands. 
The learned and valuable work from which we have made 
the following extracts, has been just published by Dr Hibbert, 
under the title of Description of the Shetland Islands^ 
comprising an Account of their Geology^ Scenery., Antiquities^ 
and Superstitions^ and will be perused with much interest by 
the geologist, the antiquary, and the general reader. 
As our geological readers have already been made acquainted 
with Dr Hibberfs Mineralogical Survey of Shetland, through 
the medium of this Journal we shall limit our extracts at pre- 
sent to those objects of general science which will be more inte- 
resting to another class of readers, 
I. Account of the Pursuit and Capture of a Drove of Whales. 
I had landed at Mr Leisk’s of Burra Voe in Yell, when a 
fishing-boat arrived with the intelligence that a drove of Ca’ing 
Whales *1" had entered Yell Sound. Females and boys, on hear- 
ing the news, issued from the cottages in every direction, making 
the hills reverberate with joyful exclamations of the event. The 
fishermen armed themselves with a rude sort of harpoon, formed 
from long iron-pointed spits; — they hurried to the strand, launch- 
ed their boats, and at the same time stored the bottom of them 
with loose stones. Thus was a large fleet of yawls soon collect- 
ed from various points of the coast, which proceeded towards the 
entrance of the Sound. Some slight irregular ripples among 
the waves shewed the place where a shoal of whales were ad- 
vancing. They might be seen sporting on the surface of the 
ocean for at least a quarter of an hour, disappearing, and rising 
again to blow. The main object was to drive them upon the 
sandy shore of Hamna Voe, and it was soon evident that, with 
their enemy in their rear, they were taking this direction. Most 
of the boats were ranged in a semicircular form, being at the 
distance of about 50 yards from the animals. A few skiffs, 
however, acted as a force of reserve, keeping at some little dis- 
* See this Journal., Vol. I. p. 296. and Vol. H. p. 67. 
-j- The Ca'ing Whale, under the name of Delpkinus Dcductor^ is figured in Cap- 
tain Scorschy’s work on the iVrctic Regions. It seldom exceeds 22 feet in length.. 
