VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
73 
to find that, from its immense weight, the body of 
the fish sunk so much below the surface of the 
water^ as totally to prevent an inspection. It was 
impossible to look upon this immense animal, and 
to think of the scene which I had just witnessed, 
without remembering a passage from Crabbe's Tales 
of the Hall, descriptive of the same circumstances. 
I sought the men returned from regions cold, 
The frozen straits where icy mountains roll’d, 
Some I could win, to tell me serious tales 
Of boats uplifted by enormous whales : 
Or, when harpooned, how swiftly through the sea 
The wounded monsters with the cordage flee ; 
Yet some uneasy thought assailed me then, 
The monsters warred not with, nor wounded, men : 
The smaller fry we take with scales and fins, 
Who gasp and die, this adds not to our sins : 
But so much blood, warm life, and frames so large, 
To strike, to murder— seemed a heavy charge. 
Several unicorns were playing not far 
May 26. ^ j Went in pursuit, but the 
extreme brightness of the day, prevented my get- 
ting near them : I, however, shot upwards of twenty 
of the Procellaria glacialis, (Linn.,) or Fulmar's Pe- 
teriL These birds were met with soon after we had 
left England, and in the arctic circle they abound : 
they keep chiefly in the high seas, feeding on dead 
whales, or any other fleshy substance, that floats 
on the surface ; they will also pick the fat from the 
backs of the living whales, especially of the wounded, 
following the bloody track, by hundreds, to watch 
their rising. The bill of these birds is very strong, 
