April 13, 1907-! 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
579 
Skeletonizing a Whale. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
It was on the morning of Feb. 23 that word 
came to the American Museum of Natural His¬ 
tory in New York city of two whales which had 
been captured off the southern coast of Long 
Island at the village of Amagansett. In what 
condition they were, or of what species w r e know 
not, but they were there and that was sufficient. 
The director of the museum telephoned the 
owners immediately to suspend all cutting opera¬ 
tions until negotiations could be opened for their 
purchase, and Mr. James L. Clark, the museum 
animal sculptor, and myself prepared for our 
journey to the village. Two suit cases were 
packed with oil skins and sou’westers, cameras, 
sketching blocks and modeling wax, and in the 
afternoon we were on the slow-moving express 
bound for Amagansett and the whales. 
We reached our destination shortly after 7 
o’clock in the evening, were bundled into the 
old-fashioned stage at the station, and driven 
with much jolting and rattling of bolts to the 
home of Captain “Josh” Edwards, owner of the' 
whale and patriarch of the village. Captain Josh, 
as he is known to all the inhabitants of the coun¬ 
try far and near, is a genial old man radiating 
good nature, and a typical whaler of the old 
school. Although seventy-six years have whitened 
his hair, when, on the day before, the cry of, 
“There she blows” sounded through the village. 
Captain Josh forgot his age and was in the first 
boat to leave the beach on the five-mile chase. 
And it was his arm, still strong under the weight 
of years, which gave the animal its death blow 
with the heavy, keen-pointed lance. 
It was not long before satisfactory arrange¬ 
ments were concluded for the purchase of the 
; carcass, whalebone and all, minus the blubber, 
and after a supper of hot johnny cakes and roast 
! beef, Mr. Clark and myself drove to the beach 
1 to have our first look at the whale by moonlight. 
We found the huge carcass rolling in the surf 
just at the edge of the water at low tide, and a 
most uninviting looking object it was. The 
blubber had been cut away from one side, leav¬ 
ing the flesh exposed, and the whole body _ was 
encased in ice to the thickness of nearly an inch. 
Although seas were breaking over it almost every 
instant, we managed to get close enough to de¬ 
termine that the animal was a North Atlantic 
1 right whale (Balcena biscayensis ) and a big one, 
too. This was sufficient for that night as it was 
bitter cold and the wind cut like a knife, so we 
returned to our rooms where a thick Long Island 
feather bed and plenty of warm blankets were 
awaiting us. 
.Sunday morning dawned bright and clear with 
the mercury at 15 degrees below zero and going 
down, but after a breakfast in which buckwheat 
pancakes and maple syrup played an important 
part, we felt that a battle with the wind and 
weather would be much enjoyed. Clad in 
sweaters, oilskins and rubber boots, with our 
cameras and sketching blocks in a suit case, we 
J' walked to the beach to find that already a crowd 
N of nearly five hundred people had gathered about 
! and were examining the whale with curious in- 
! terest. It was lying on its side, but a great 
deal of the ice had been washed away by the tide 
and we were able to get many valuable photo¬ 
graphs and measurements. 
To us one of the most interesting and impor- 
j tant parts of the animal was the baleen or whale¬ 
bone of commerce, for it was to secure this for 
exhibition in connection with the skeleton which 
had sent us in such haste to the village. The 
baleen hangs in the mouth, from either side of 
the upper jaw in long plates which narrow at 
the end into a blunt point. The interior edges 
of these baleen pfates are frayed out into fine 
strips for their entire distance, thus forming a 
thick mat which resembles nothing so much as 
horse hair. When feeding, the animal takes in 
great mouthfuls of water and lets'it rush through 
this hair-like mat of whalebone, thus straining 
out the minute crustaceans which comprise its 
food. We found that the baleen was exception¬ 
ally long and fine, several plates measuring six 
feet nine inches from the gum to the longest 
hair at the extreme tip. 
As the tide was high about 2 o’clock in the 
afternoon, our work was limited by the water, 
but on Monday morning when we arrived at the 
beach operations were begun at once. During 
the night the surf had very conveniently rolled 
the carcass over, making it easy to remove the 
blubber which covers the entire body under the 
skin to the depth of seven or eight inches. This 
was done by making transverse incisions and strip¬ 
ping off long sections of the blubber by the aid of 
whale spades and hooks. Eight men made short 
work of this, and before noon we had the head 
severed from the body and were ready to remove 
the whalebone from the roof of the mouth. In 
order not to separate the plates, the baleen was 
left embedded in the gum and each side re¬ 
moved in two sections by cutting through the 
tissue to the skull with a whale spade. It was 
high tide by this time, and as the water made 
further operations impossible we left the beach 
for the day and returned to a warm supper and 
a pipe at motherly Mrs. King’s, our landlady. 
And how we did eat! It seemed as though eggs 
had never tasted so good, and the coffee we 
drank would have made a nerve doctor tremble. 
Our men were there before us next morning 
armed with whale spades and hooks, ready to 
begin the work of cutting twenty-five tons of 
flesh away from the bones. Fortunately there 
was a strong off-shore breeze, and by working- 
on the windward side of the carcass we escaped 
much of the odor. The meat was cut and pulled 
away in great pieces until the ribs on the upper 
side were exposed. As soon as one of these was 
loosened it was disarticulated, and after being 
freed from flesh, carried high up on the beach. 
The work progressed famously and by high water 
at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, we had removed 
all of the flesh from one side of the carcass and 
most of the viscera. After writing up our notes 
and measurements that evening, we went to bed 
with the comfortable feeling that the hardest of 
our work was done. But vain delusion, for little 
did we realize what was in store for us on the 
morrow. 
As ill luck would have it the wind changed 
during the night and in the morning we awoke 
to find a heavy surf pounding away at our whale. 
There was nothing to be done but stand on the 
beach and wait for low tide which would be 
about 9 o’clock, with the hope that perhaps we 
would be able to finish our work when the water 
had gone down. Nine o’clock came, but the 
waves were still churning themselves into foam 
over the vertebrae, and between the ribs of the 
skeleton, which was then being rapidly buried 
beneath the sand. Finally we could stand it no 
longer, for some of the bones were loosening 
and were in great danger of being lost, so with 
two or three men to assist us, Mr. Clark and 
myself waded into the surf and began cutting 
away at the carcass. It was slow work at best, for 
the strength of the undertow from the great waves 
was tremendous, and the shifting sand made it 
almost impossible to keep our feet and avoid being 
carried out to sea. Time after time our men were 
driven away, but toward noon the surf fell some¬ 
what and all hands were able to use the shovels to 
build a breakwater. Great chunks of whale meat 
and blubber were piled around the carcass and 
the sand banked about them on the inside. But 
try as we would it was impossible to keep the 
water from leaking through the sand at the bot¬ 
tom and filling up the hole we had dug about 
the skeleton. This problem was soon solved, 
however, by keeping two men at work with 
buckets bailing out the water, while the rest of 
us worked with the knives. There was no lunch 
that day, for every moment was precious if we 
were to save the skeleton. Finally, however, 
when the tide began to come in our breakwater 
was washed away and after lashing the remain¬ 
ing bones firmly together, we were forced to 
abandon the work. 
Next day we found the surf still hammering 
away at the carcass, which was by this time 
almost completely buried in the sand. We 
groaned when we thought of what was before 
us, but profiting by our experience of the pre- 
STRIPPING THE BLUBBER FROM THE CARCASS. 
