OEDEE OF CETACEA. 
43 
In a given latitude a distinction is made, according to the habits 
of the Whale, between the open- sea season, that is to say the 
season in which the Whale keeps at twenty, thirty, or forty 
leagues from land, and the bay season, a period at which the 
Whale comes near the land, and confines itself to places where 
the water is shallow, sheltered from the wind, in a bay, or a creek, 
near a coast. The open-sea season is in the spring and summer, 
the bay season in the autumn and winter. Ho Cetacea are to 
be found on the fishing- grounds out of those two seasons. 
Though always obedient to the seasons, these animals never- 
theless leave their habitual places of abode, or cease to return 
to them, when they have been pursued there during many 
years by numerous whalers ; or else when, for some mysterious 
reason, their food has become less abundant there. It is not 
known, however, whither they go when they leave those lati- 
tudes. 
Before describing the Whale fishery, as it is inappropriately 
styled, and making known the weapons and processes at present 
made use of in it, we will glance at the history of this branch of 
marine industry. 
Who can tell now where the first Whale was killed P One can 
only make conjectures on this point. The temperature of the 
medium in which the Whale lives has a great influence over the 
rapidity of its movements — over its sensibility. In the seas of 
the extreme north its movements are slow ; it feels pain very 
little, it makes but a poor defence of itself, and flees before its 
pursuers but slowly.* It was then, without doubt, in these regions 
that the courageous idea of attacking this colossus of the sea was 
first conceived. The inhabitants of the northern countries were 
the more incited to this enterprise as they saw in these monstrous 
creatures an immense reservoir of oil, a matter of which they stood 
so much in need ; a provision of meat which, when frozen, kept 
through the whole winter ; bones suitable for the framework of 
their dwelling-places, and diverse other useful products, furnished 
by the intestines and the tendons of this gigantic object of pursuit. 
Most extravagant tales have been told about the primitive 
hunting of the Whale. It is said that when the savages of Florida 
perceived a Whale, one of them got on its back, drove a plug into 
* Here, again, the Whales and Eorquals are confounded. — Ed. 
