III.] 
WHITE WHALE FISHEKY. 
167 
the fishing appears to have been most productive, by vessels 
belonging to Tromsoe alone, 2,167 white whales. Their value 
was estimated at fifty-four Scandinavian crowns each (about 3/.). 
The fishing, though tempting, is yet very uncertain ; it sometimes 
falls out extraordinarily abundant, as in the spring cf 1880, when 
a skipper immediately on arriving at Magdalena Bay caught 800 
of these animals at a cast of the net. Of the whales thus 
killed not only the blubber and hide are taken away, but also, 
when possible, the carcases, which, when cheap freight can be 
had, are utilised at the guano manufactories in the north cf 
Norway. After having lain a whole year on the beach at 
Spitzbergen they may be taken on board a vessel without any 
THE WHITE WHALE. (DelpMnapterus leucas, Pallas.) 
After a drawing by A. W. Quenner.stedt (1864), 
great inconvenience, a proof that putrefaction proceeds with 
extreme slowness in the Polar regions. 
With its blinding milk-white hide, on which it is seldom 
possible to discover a spot, wrinkle, or scratch, the full-grown 
white whale is an animal of extraordinary beauty. The young 
whales are not white, but very light greyish brown. The white 
whale is taken in nets not only by the Norw^egians at Spitzbergen, 
but also by the Russians and Samoyeds at Chabarova. In 
former times they appear to have been also caught at the mouth 
of the Yenisej, to judge by the large number of vertebrae that 
are found at the now deserted settlements there. The white 
whale there goes several hundred kilometres up the river. I 
