134 
CAPE COD. 
and probably Provincetown made as much more. An¬ 
other fisherman told me that nineteen years ago three 
hundred and eighty were driven ashore in one school at 
Great Hollow. In the Naturalists’ Library, it is said 
that, in the winter of 1809 - 10, one thousand one hundred 
and ten approached the shore of HraLfiord, Iceland, and 
were captured.” De Kay says it is not known why 
they are stranded. But one fisherman declared to me 
that they ran ashore in pursuit of squid, and that they 
generally came on the coast about the last of July. 
About a week afterward, when I came to this shore, 
it was strewn as far as I could see with a glass, with 
the carcasses of blackfish stripped of their blubber and 
their heads cut off; the latter lying higher up. Walk¬ 
ing on the beach was out of the question on account of 
the stench. Between Provincetown and Truro they lay 
in the very path of the stage. Yet no steps were taken 
to abate the nuisance, and men were catching lobsters 
as usual just off the shore. I was told that they did 
sometimes tow them out and sink them ; yet I wondered 
where they got the stones to sink them with. Of course 
they might be made into guano, and Cape Cod is not so 
fertile that her inhabitants can afford to do without this 
manure, — to say nothing of the diseases they may pro¬ 
duce. 
After my return home, wishing to learn what was 
known about the Blackfish, I had recourse to the re¬ 
ports of the zoological surveys of the State, and I found 
that Storer had rightfully omitted it in his Report on the 
Fishes, since it is not a fish; so I turned to Emmons’s 
Report of the Mammalia, but was surprised to find that 
the seals and whales were omitted by him, because he 
had had no opportunity to observe them. Considering 
