WHALES, AND BRITISH AND COLONIAL WHALE FISHERIES[34]

When asked by your Council to lecture upon some subject connected with natural history, it occurred to me that the great link between Britain and all her Colonies was the ocean, and that, therefore, something concerning its animal inhabitants might be interesting to those whose avocations and situation in life call them to traverse its pathless ways. Even in an ordinary voyage, such as is necessitated by any intercourse between a Colony and the Mother Country, some familiarity may be acquired with the gigantic denizens of the deep; but the knowledge of them so gained is generally so slight and superficial that I venture to think that some more accurate and definite information about them would be welcome. The subject I have chosen is, however, so large that I can only, in the limited time allowed on one evening, select a few of the more interesting features in the history of these remarkable animals, both from the point of view of the naturalist and in their relation to human civilisation and commerce.

In the admirable sketch, by our greatest living naturalist, of the history of the science of comparative anatomy during the present century, appended to the recently published _Life of Sir Richard Owen_, Professor Huxley says: “Take, for example, the question whether a whale is a fish or not, which, I observe, is not yet quite settled for some people. As the whale is not a little like a fish outside, and lives permanently in the sea, why should it not be classed with the fishes?” Before proceeding to answer this question, I must ask another. In what sense do you use the term “fish”? It happened to me a few years ago to receive a semi-official inquiry from the Colonial Office, as to whether a lobster was a fish, because an important point in the dispute between the French and English about the Newfoundland fisheries depended upon the interpretation of an old treaty in which the word “fish” occurs. After giving the modern naturalists’ definition of a fish, by which a lobster is clearly excluded from the class, of course I felt it necessary to remind my correspondents that in such a case the real answer to the question lay in the sense in which the word was used at the time of the treaty, and by those who were parties to drawing it up, and if that could be ascertained it would be more to the point than the strictest of scientific definitions. Now, on turning to what was, in the beginning of the present century, our greatest authority on the meaning of words, I find in _Johnson’s Dictionary_ (I now quote from Todd’s edition, 1818) “_fish_” defined as “an animal that inhabits the water.” Without doubt this was the general and popular view, as the universally used expressions _shell-fish_, lobster and oyster _fisheries_, whale _fisheries_, and even seal _fisheries_, abundantly testify. I therefore cannot say that in a certain vague and antiquated sense of the word, “fish” may not be applied to the animals of which I propose to speak to you this evening. This must not, however, cause us to forget that, tested by the light of modern scientific knowledge, a whale is in everything essential in its structure entirely removed from the class of animals to which zoologists now restrict the term “fish,” a very clearly defined group of cold-blooded creatures, breathing by means of gills the air which is dissolved in the water in which they swim, with lowly organised brain, and producing their young from eggs, and after they are born not nourishing them by the mother’s milk--in all of which, and many other important characters, whales are entirely removed from them. In fact, as Professor Huxley continues, in response to the question with which I stopped the quotation:--

The answer, of course is, that the moment one compares a whale with any one of the thousands of ordinary fishes, the two are seen to differ in almost every particular of structure and, moreover, in all those points in which the whale differs from the fish, it agrees with ordinary mammals. Therefore the zoologists put the whales into the same class with the mammals, and not into that of the fishes. But this conclusion implies the assumption that animals should be arranged according to the totality of their resemblances. It means that the likenesses in structure of whales and mammals are greatly more numerous and more close than the likenesses between whales and fishes.

It also means, if the derivative hypothesis of animal species is true, that the whale is far more nearly related to, say, a horse or a cow than it is to a cod or a shark.

It is decided, then, that, from the point of view of a zoologist at all events (whatever the fisherman and the man of business may continue to say), the whales and their allies belong to the class _Mammalia_, and not to that of _Pisces_. We can easily fix their place in that class as constituting a distinct and clearly defined order, the _Cetacea_, derived from the Latin word _cetus_ = a whale. Although the term “whale” is generally, if somewhat vaguely, restricted to the larger and middle-sized members of the order, the smaller ones, commonly called “dolphins” and “porpoises,” to all intents and purposes belong to it, and no line can be drawn to separate them except size; and even in this respect there is a regular gradation between the colossal rorqual of 80 feet in length to the pontoporia, or dolphin of the estuary of the La Plata, which scarcely exceeds a yard from snout to tail. On this occasion, after a few general observations on the group, I propose to limit myself almost entirely to the larger species, to which the term “whale” is most especially appropriate, and which have the greatest interest to man, on account of the industries to which the commercial value of their products gives rise.

Taken altogether, as I have mentioned, the _Cetacea_ constitute a perfectly distinct and natural order of mammals, characterised by their purely aquatic mode of life and external fish-like form. Their body passes anteriorly into the head without any distinct constriction or neck, and posteriorly tapers off gradually to the tail, which is provided with a pair of lateral pointed expansions of skin, supported by dense fibrous tissue, called “flukes,” forming together a horizontally placed triangular propelling organ, quite different from the vertically-placed tail-fin of a fish. The fore limbs are reduced to the condition of flattened paddles, encased in a continuous skin, showing no external sign of division into arm, forearm, hand, or fingers, and without any trace of nails. There are no vestiges of hind limbs visible externally, although in many species rudiments of the hip and thigh bones, and of the muscles and joints connecting them, are found buried far away below the surface. The general surface of the body is smooth and glistening and devoid of hair, the absence of which, as a preserver of the animal heat, is compensated for by the remarkable layer of dense fat or “blubber” immediately beneath the skin. The whole organisation necessitates their life being passed entirely in the water, as on land they are absolutely helpless; but they have to rise very frequently to the surface for the purpose of respiration. The position of the respiratory orifice, nostril, or “blowhole” on the highest part of the head is very important for this mode of life, since it is the only part of the body of which the exposure above the surface is absolutely necessary. Of the numerous erroneous ideas connected with natural history, few are so widespread and still so firmly believed, notwithstanding repeated expositions of its falsity, as that whales spout out through their blowholes water taken in at their mouth. The fact is, the “spouting,” or more properly “blowing,” of the whale is nothing more than the ordinary act of breathing, which, taking place at longer intervals than in land animals, is performed with a greater amount of emphasis. The moment the animal rises to the surface it forcibly expels from its lungs the air taken in at the last inspiration, which of course is highly charged with watery vapour in consequence of the natural respiratory changes. This, rapidly condensing in the cold atmosphere in which the phenomenon is generally observed, forms a column of steam or spray, which has been erroneously taken for water.

It also often happens, especially when the surface of the ocean is agitated into waves, that the animal commences its expiratory puff before the orifice has quite cleared the top of the water, some of which may thus be driven upwards with the blast, tending to complete the illusion. In hunting whales the harpoon often pierces the lungs or air passages of the unfortunate victim, and then fountains of blood may be forced high in the air through the blow-holes, as commonly depicted in scenes of Arctic adventure; but this is nothing more (allowance being made for the whale’s peculiar mode of breathing) than what always follows severe wounds of the respiratory organs of other warm-blooded animals.

The _Cetacea_ all subsist on animal food of some kind. One genus alone (the killers, _Orca_) eat other warm-blooded animals, as seals, and even members of their own order, both large and small. Some feed on fish, others on small floating crustacea, pteropods, and medusæ; while the staple food of many is constituted of the various species of cephalopods (squid and cuttlefish), which abound in some seas in vast quantities. With some exceptions they are generally timid, inoffensive animals, active in their movements, sociable and gregarious in their habits. They are remarkable for the great care and affection with which they treat their young.

Among the existing members of the order there are two very distinct types--the toothed whales (_Odontoceti_) and the whalebone or baleen whales (_Mystacoceti_), which present throughout their organisation markedly distinct structural characters, and have no transitional forms between them. The giants of the order, of which I am about to speak, contain representatives of both groups.

The whales that have teeth and no whalebone are far the most numerous, and include all the smaller members of the order, the various kinds of dolphins and porpoises, among which are the fresh-water dolphins of the great rivers of India and South America. Some of the moderate-sized animals of this group, especially those spoken of by sailors under the vague designations of “grampuses,” “bottle-noses,” and “black fish” (_Orca_, _Hyperoodon_, and _Globicephalus_ of zoologists), may be classed as whales, and some of them, as well as the narwhal and beluga or white whale of the Arctic Seas, are objects of pursuit by man, and when captured yield products, mainly oil, of commercial value. But time will only allow me now to speak in any detail of one species, which greatly surpasses all the others, not only in size, but in value and interest, as having long afforded material for a regular and important branch of human industry. This is the animal commonly called the “sperm whale,” known in books by its French name of _cachalot_, or its scientific designation of _Physeter macrocephalus_, which, taken altogether--not in length, but in bulk and weight--is the most colossal of all animals.

Although a contrary opinion prevailed at one time, it is now fairly well established that there is but one species of sperm whale, which has a remarkably wide geographical distribution, being met with, usually in herds, or “schools” as they are termed, in almost all tropical or subtropical seas, but not occurring, except accidentally, in the Polar regions. Not unfrequently specimens appear on the coasts of Great Britain, but only as solitary stragglers, or as dead carcasses floated northwards by the Gulf Stream. It is remarkable that every case of these of which we have an accurate record has been an old male. The females and young appear never to wander so far from their usual haunts, although they have been met with in the Mediterranean, and even on the Atlantic coast of France. The sperm whale (Fig. 8) is a strange-looking animal, and cannot be mistaken for any other cetacean. The head is about one-third of the whole length of the animal, very massive, high, and truncated in front, and owes its huge size and remarkable form mainly to the great accumulation of a peculiar form of oily matter, contained in great cells, connected with the nasal passages, and filling the large hollow on the upper surface of the skull. This oily matter, liquid at the natural temperature of the body, crystallises when cold, and yields when refined the spermaceti of commerce, so valuable in the manufacture of surgical ointments and candles. The nostril or “blowhole” is single, in the form of a longitudinal slit, and placed, not near the top of the head, as in most other cetaceans, but near the front end of the great snout, and rather to the left of the middle line. Consequently the “blowing” of the sperm whale is so different from that of all other species that the whalers can recognise it at any distance. The steamy jet, instead of being double and projected directly upwards, as in an ordinary fountain, which is the case with all the large whalebone whales, is single and directed obliquely forwards. The opening of the mouth is on the under side of the head, considerably behind the end of the snout. The lower jaw is extremely narrow, and has on each side from twenty to twenty-five stout conical teeth, which furnish ivory of good quality, though not in sufficient bulk for most of the purposes for which that article is required. The upper teeth are quite rudimentary and buried in the gum. The pectoral fin, or flipper, is short and broad, and on the back, where many whales have a dorsal fin, there is a series of low, rounded protuberances, scarcely to be called fins. The general colour of the surface is black above and gray below, the colours gradually shading into each other. The food of the sperm whale consists mainly of various species of cephalopods (squid and cuttlefish), but they also eat fish of considerable size.

The length of the sperm whale has been, as is always the case in which size is the most striking characteristic, greatly exaggerated. Giants are always said to be much larger than they really are, as tested by rigid measurements. To say nothing of the fabulous dimensions given by older writers, even Beale, who had immense opportunities of actual observation, says that one captured in the Japan seas measured 84 feet in length. Such statements, however intended in good faith, can never be relied upon; the difficulties and sources of fallacy in making such measurements are very great, and we are not assured whether the length is taken, as it should be, in a straight line between the front end of the head and the middle of the end of the tail, or following the curves of the surface of the body, which of course would give a considerably greater length. I have taken pains to obtain careful measurements of all the skeletons available of perfectly adult or even aged animals in various museums which I have visited, and it is curious how nearly alike they are. Allowing for the distance between the vertebræ and for the soft parts at either end, about 55 feet seems to be the usual length of the male sperm whale, and I have never been able to find any substantial proof that any one has even attained the length of 60 feet, fairly measured. The skeleton at Burton Constable, prepared from a whale which came ashore on the Yorkshire coast in 1825, is that of a very aged animal, and now measures 48 feet 4 inches in length, the vertebræ being articulated in close apposition, but even if 10 feet are allowed in addition, this would not bring it up to 60 feet. In the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons is a lower jaw presented by the late Mr. W. L. Crowther, of Hobart Town, which was considered as that of the largest sperm whale ever killed in the Tasmanian seas, and quite unique on account of its size. It only measures one inch more than the jaw of the Yorkshire specimen. The female of this species, contrary to what occurs among the whalebone whales, is very much smaller than the male.

The products of the sperm whale which render it commercially valuable when killed are (1) sperm oil, obtained by boiling the thick coating of blubber which everywhere envelops the body of the animal; (2) spermaceti, contained in the great cavity on the top of the head; (3) ambergris, formerly used in medicine, and now in perfumery--a concretion formed in the intestine of this whale, and often found floating on the surface of the seas it inhabits. Its genuineness is proved by the presence of the horny beaks of the cephalopods on which the whale feeds.

The capture or “fishery” of the sperm whale will be spoken of later on in conjunction with that of the other species of whales.

All the other large whales which are of importance to man belong to the group called “whalebone whales,” because they are provided with a remarkable apparatus in the mouth for the purpose of obtaining their food, to which the rather misleading name of “whalebone” has been given,--a name for which naturalists have substituted “baleen”; but the former is so completely engrafted into our language, especially in all commercial transactions connected with the subject, that it will probably last as long as the material itself, although it is now well known that it has nothing to do with “bone” in the ordinary acceptation of the word. What whalebone actually is was apparently a mystery to our forefathers. Belon in 1551 hazarded the conjecture that it was the eyebrows of the whale; but others thought that it was the apparatus by which it steered itself through the water. This notion is probably connected with the old feudal law cited by Blackstone (vol. i. p. 233), that the tails of all whales belonged to the Queen as a perquisite to furnish her Majesty’s wardrobe with whalebone. The whalebone whales have no teeth in either jaw (except some of a most rudimentary nature, which disappear even before birth), but in the place teeth usually occupy in the upper jaw, or rather upon each side of the palate, the whalebone grows. This consists of flattened horny plates, several hundred in number on each side, separated by a narrow bare interval along the middle line. The chemical composition and general character of these plates resemble those of hair, horn, or hoof. In minute structure they more nearly resemble the horn of the rhinoceros than any other similar growth. They are placed transversely to the long axis of the palate, with very short spaces between them. Each plate or blade is somewhat triangular in form, with the base attached to the palate and the apex hanging downwards. The outer edge of the blade is hard and smooth, but the inner edge and apex fray out into long bristly fibres, so that the roof of the whale’s mouth looks as if covered with hair, as described by Aristotle. As the bony palate is more or less arched from before backwards, the blades are longest near the middle of the series, and gradually diminish towards the front and back of the mouth.

The use of the whalebone to the whale is to strain the water from the small marine molluscs, crustaceans, or fish upon which the whales subsist. In feeding they fill the immense mouth with water containing shoals of these small creatures, and then on their closing the jaws and raising the tongue, so as to diminish the cavity of the mouth, the water streams out through the narrow intervals between the hairy fringe of the whalebone blades, and escapes through the lips, leaving the living prey to be swallowed. In the different kinds of whales, which I shall now speak of, there are great differences in the character of the baleen. In the Californian grey whale (_Rachianectes glaucus_), an animal which attains a length of from 30 to 40 feet, the baleen blades are fewer than two hundred on each side, and far apart, very short (the longest being from 14 to 16 inches in length), coarse, and inelastic, light brown or nearly white in colour. From this there is a gradual transition, through the rorquals or finners, the humpbacks, the southern right whales, up to the Greenland whale, which exhibits this structure in its greatest perfection, both for the purposes it serves in the animal economy, and for the uses to which it has been applied by man.

All the known whalebone whales may be divided into five different groups or _genera_, as they are called by naturalists, the first of which (genus _Balæna_) have long been distinguished by practical whalers as “right whales,” as they are, compared to all the others, the right whales to catch, being of far the greater commercial value. They are readily distinguished externally by the perfectly smooth back, without any trace of a dorsal fin, and by the skin of the throat and chest being also smooth, whereas in most of the other forms this region presents a number of deep longitudinal plaits or furrows. Of the right whales there are two perfectly distinct forms, though whether each of these represents a single species, or can be subdivided into several, is still a matter of uncertainty, and for our present purpose of little importance, as if minute investigation can prove that they are separable, they are most closely allied and perfectly similar to all ordinary observation. The two forms, which I shall speak of as species or kinds, are the Greenland or rather Arctic right whale (_Balæna mysticetus_) and the southern right whale (_Balæna australis_).

The Arctic right whale (Fig. 9), when full grown, attains the length of from 45 to 50 feet, a size which, as in the case of the sperm whale, has generally been greatly exaggerated in old descriptions. As is apparently the case in all whalebone whales, but contrary to what occurs in the sperm whale, the female is rather larger than the male. Its external form is shown in Fig. 9, from a careful drawing by Mr. Robert Gray. In this species all the peculiarities which distinguish the head and mouth of the whales from those of other mammals have attained their greatest development. The head is of enormous size, exceeding one-third of the whole length of the creature. The cavity of the mouth is fully as large as that of the body, chest and abdomen together. The upper jaw is very narrow but greatly arched from before backwards, to increase the height of the cavity and allow for the great length of the baleen or “whalebone” blades. The enormous rami of the lower jaw are widely separated behind, and have a still farther outward sweep before they meet in front, giving the floor of the mouth the shape of an immense spoon. The baleen blades attain the number of 380 or more on each side, and those in the middle of the series have a length of 10 or sometimes 12 feet. They are black in colour, fine, and highly elastic in texture, and fray out at the inner edge and ends into long, delicate, soft, almost silky, but very tough hairs. The remarkable development of the mouth, and of the structures in connection with it, which distinguishes the right whale among its allies is entirely in relation to the nature of its food. It is by this apparatus that it is enabled to avail itself of the minute but highly nutritious crustaceans and pteropods which swarm in immense shoals in the seas it frequents. The large mouth enables it to take in at one time a sufficient quantity of water filled with these small organisms, and the length and delicate structure of the baleen provide a sufficient strainer or hair-sieve by which the water can be drained off. If the baleen were rigid, and only as long as is the aperture between the upper and lower jaws when the mouth is shut, a space would be left beneath it when the jaws are separated, through which the water and the minute particles of food would escape together. But instead of this, the long, slender, brush-like, elastic ends of the whalebone blades fold back when the mouth is closed, the front ones passing below the hinder ones in a channel lying between the tongue and the lower jaw. When the mouth is opened their elasticity causes them to straighten out like a bow unbent, so that at whatever distance the jaws are separated the strainer remains in perfect action, filling the whole of the interval. The mechanical perfection of the arrangement is completed by the great development of the lower lip, which rises stiffly above the jawbone, and prevents the long, slender, flexible ends of the baleen from being carried outwards by the rush of water from the mouth, when its cavity is being diminished by the closure of the jaws and raising of the tongue.

If, as appears highly probable, the “bowhead” or right whale of the Okhotsk Sea and Behring Strait belongs to this species, its range is circumpolar, but it is strictly limited to the icy seas of the north. “Though,” as Scammon says, “it is true that these animals are pursued in the open water during the summer months, in no instance have we learned of their being captured south of where winter ice-fields are occasionally met with.” In the Behring Sea it is seldom seen south of the 55th parallel, and the southern limit of its range in the North Sea has been ascertained by Eschricht and Reinhardt to be from the east coast of Greenland at 64° N. lat. along the north of Iceland towards Spitzbergen. Though found in the seas on both sides of Greenland, and passing freely from one to the other, it is never seen so far south as Cape Farewell; but on the Labrador coast, where a cold stream sets down from the north, its range is somewhat further. There is no authentic instance of its having been seen or captured upon any European coast.

The southern right whale, or “black whale” (Fig. 10), as it is often called by whalers, attains about the same length as the last, but differs in being more slender in form, in possessing a smaller head in proportion to the body, shorter baleen (scarcely more than half the length), a differently shaped contour of the upper margin of the lower lip, and a greater number of vertebræ. Animals of this group closely resembling each other have been found abundantly in the temperate seas of both hemispheres, North Atlantic and North Pacific (where they are regularly hunted by the Japanese), and in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope, Kerguelen’s Island, Australia, and New Zealand, but according to Captain Maury’s charts they are never or rarely seen in the tropical seas. It is chiefly this supposed isolation of distribution rather than any constant distinctive characters which has given rise to the idea that the North Atlantic whale (called _Balæna biscayensis_), the Japanese (_B. japonica_), the Cape whale (_B. australis_), and the New Zealand whale (_B. antipodarum_), must be of different species. Until more numerous specimens of skeletons are procured for our museums, or more accurate descriptions can be obtained, the question cannot be satisfactorily determined.

The whalebone whales, not called right whales, are (1) the humpback (_Megaptera_), or “hunchback” (Fig. 11), so called by whalers on account of the low hump-like form of the dorsal fin. In Dudley’s account of the whales of the New England coast (_Phil. Trans._ 1725), the fourth species is “The bunch or humpback whale, distinguished from the right whale by having a bunch standing in the place where the fin does in the finback. This bunch is as big as a man’s head, and a foot high, shaped like a plug pointing backwards.” A better distinction from all other whalebone whales is the immense length of the pectoral fins or flippers, which are indented or scalloped along their margins. The usual length of the adult ranges from 45 to 50 feet. The baleen plates are short and broad, and of a deep black colour. This whale has a very wide range, being found, with no important differences, in both the North and South Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and from Greenland to South Georgia. When caught it yields a fair supply of oil, but much less than the right whales, and its whalebone is of very inferior quality.

(2) The rorquals, or finners (_Balænoptera_) (Fig. 12). These have the plicated skin of the throat like that of the humpback, the furrows being more numerous and close set, but the pectoral fins are comparatively small, and the dorsal fin distinct, compressed, and triangular. The head is comparatively small and flat, and pointed in front, the whalebone short and coarse, the body long and slender, and the tail very much compressed before it expands into the “flukes.” The rorquals are perhaps the most abundant and widely distributed of all the whales, being found in all seas, except the extreme Arctic and probably Antarctic regions. Owing to the small quantity and inferior quality of their whalebone, the comparatively limited amount of blubber or subcutaneous fat, their great activity, and the difficulty of capturing them by the old methods, these whales were not until recently an object of pursuit by whale-fishers; but since the introduction of steam-vessels, and especially of explosive harpoons fired from guns in the place of those hurled by the human hand, a regular fishery of “finbacks” has been established on the coast of Finmark, where many hundreds are killed every year, their bodies being towed to shore for the purpose of flensing. Some of the rorquals attain the largest size of any of the _Cetacea_, the blue whale (_Balænoptera sibbaldii_), not unfrequent in the British Seas, reaching a length of 80 or perhaps 85 feet when fully adult. On the other hand, one common species (_B. rostrata_) never exceeds 30 feet in length.

(3) Besides these there are other two forms of whalebone whales not reckoned as right whales, the grey whale of the North Pacific (_Rhachianectes glaucus_), and a small and very peculiar species from the seas around New Zealand and Australia (_Neobalæna marginata_); but these being very local in distribution, and of little value except for museums, are more interesting from a scientific than from a commercial point of view.

I now proceed to the next part of my subject--the pursuit and capture of whales by man for the sake of the materials they yield, which are of value in commerce. The method universally followed is attacking the animal when it comes to the surface of the water to breathe by means of a weapon called a harpoon, with an iron sharp-pointed barbed head, and to the shaft of which is attached a strong line. In former days this was always thrown by the hand, and to do so effectually required great skill on the part of the man who wielded it. Now the harpoon is generally projected from a gun, which carries a considerably greater distance than could be traversed by a hand-thrown weapon, and the necessity of approaching so closely to the animal is avoided. Various methods to increase the efficacy of harpoons have also been introduced including devices by which they explode within the body of the victim. Long straight spears or lances are also used to despatch the animal when it has been secured by the line attached to the harpoon. The whale is always approached by rowing in a boat as closely to it as necessary. These boats may be directly connected with a station on the coast or with a ship out at sea. This gives rise to the primary division of whale fishing into two principal methods: shore fishing and open-sea fishing, both of which are extensively practised in various parts of the world. In the first, a look out is kept from a station on some projecting headland, and when a whale appears within sight signals are given on which the boats go out in pursuit, and when a capture takes place the body is towed to shore for the purpose of obtaining its valuable products. In the second, the ships sail to some distant part of the open sea, where it is supposed that whales are likely to be met with. The look out is kept from the “crow’s nest” on the masthead, and the boats being all in readiness row out in pursuit the moment a whale is sighted, and if successful tow their prey to the side of the vessel.

As I mentioned before, all cetaceans have immediately beneath their skin, and closely connected with it, a very dense layer of what is called “blubber,” in large whales as much as a foot in thickness, composed of a network of cellular tissue, the interspaces of which are filled with oil. This layer, though so adherent to the outer skin as to be separated from it with difficulty, is only connected with the flesh or muscles which lie below by loose tissue, and so is easily stripped off. With a large whale this process, called “flensing,” is effected as follows. If the animal is caught at sea, the carcass is lashed alongside the ship, and men with spikes in their shoes, descend upon the slippery surface, and with large sharp-edged spades perform the cutting part of the operation, having first fixed, by means of a hook, a strong rope into the blubber at the junction of the head and the body. This rope runs over pulleys fixed to the rigging of the ship, and the blubber, separated by the spades into strips about two or three feet broad, is gradually hauled up on to the deck of the ship. The cuts being made in a spiral direction round the body of the whale, the blubber is stripped off from head to tail, much as a spiral roller or bandage might be, the body of the whale meanwhile performing a rotatory motion. When the blubber is brought on board, it is cut up into smaller pieces, and either stowed in casks or tanks to be brought home to undergo the next process, that of “trying out,” or if the voyage is of lengthened duration, as in the case of the South Sea whalers hailing from European or American ports, this is done on board the ship. It simply consists of boiling the blubber in large iron pots until the oil is separated from the mesh of cellular tissue which contained it, the latter being generally used for fuel in subsequent boilings. In the case of the sperm whale the upper surface of the great head is opened, and the liquid spermaceti is baled out of the cavities which contain it, and in the case of the whalebone whales the whalebone is removed from the mouth. All the rest of the animal being useless is turned adrift into the sea, and speedily becomes the prey of voracious sharks and other fish and sea birds. When whales are caught near the shore, as in many of the “fisheries,” from boats without the intervention of sea-going vessels, they are towed into shallow water for the purpose of flensing and removing the whalebone.

The earliest known regular whale fishery is that which took place from the Basque towns of France and Spain, Bayonne, Biarritz, St. Jean de Luz, Fuenterrabia, St. Sebastian, Guetaria, Ondarroa, and many others. From the tenth century onwards the hardy fishermen of the towns and villages of this coast pursued the Atlantic right whales in the Bay of Biscay, at first only catching them from open boats near the shore, but afterwards, as the whales became more scarce and the whalers more adventurous, following them in ships across the Atlantic to the Bermudas, Newfoundland, and Iceland. From this source all the whale oil and all the whalebone used by our forefathers down to the year 1600 was derived. Queen Elizabeth and all her court depended upon the Basque fishermen for the most prominent characteristics of their costume. The supply was, however, diminishing when the attempt to discover the North-East route to China, about the close of the sixteenth century, led to the opening up of the sea between Greenland and Spitzbergen, and the discovery of the Arctic right whale, an animal up to that time practically unknown to man. This being much more valuable, both on account of the larger quantity and finer quality of the whalebone it produced, and also the larger amount of oil, for many years attracted the principal attention of the whaling ships of Europe. The English entered into the business at a very early period, but, being unacquainted with the methods of capturing whales, engaged Basque harpooners for all their earliest voyages, and closely followed their methods. The very word “harpoon” is said to be Basque. The Dutch also took the fishing up on a very extensive scale, and established a permanent settlement upon the northern shore of Spitzbergen, which they named “Smeeremberg,” which was the rendezvous of the whaling fleet during the summer, and to which the blubber was brought for boiling. In its most flourishing period, about the year 1680, the Dutch whale fishery employed as many as 260 ships and 14,000 men. When, however, the whales became scarcer in the neighbourhood of the coast, and the ships had to seek them further in the open sea, it was found more economical to bring the blubber direct to Holland, and Smeeremberg was deserted. The great war at the end of the last century, in which England kept possession of the North Sea, put an end to the whale fishery, not only of Holland, but of France and of all other countries which had engaged in it, and henceforth we maintained a monopoly of the trade. From the year 1732 to 1824, our government paid bounties, amounting altogether, it is calculated, to £2,500,000, to vessels engaged in the northern whaling business, with a view to encourage the enterprise. The ships at first sailed from London, then Hull, Yarmouth, and Whitby entered into the field. In 1819 as many as sixty-five ships went to the north from Hull. Since 1836 no ship has gone from London, and now Dundee and Peterhead are the only ports in the British Islands which keep up the northern whale fishery, though on a much more limited scale than formerly.

The fishery between Greenland and Spitzbergen, which in the last century proved so productive, is almost played out, but that of Davis Straits and Lancaster Sound is still remunerative, owing to the very high price that whalebone has lately been fetching. At the beginning of the century the average value was from £70 to £90 a ton, but a few years ago a sale was effected at the enormous sum of £2650 per ton; this is the highest price which has ever been given for it, and recently it has somewhat declined. In 1893 four Dundee vessels secured between them twenty-seven whales. An average-sized Greenland whale will produce about fifteen hundredweight of whalebone and about fifteen tons of oil. The Greenland fishery begins early in May, and goes on to the end of September. A few vessels remain all winter in Cumberland Inlet, ready to take advantage of the opening of the ice in the following spring. The Arctic right whale, called locally by the American whalers the “bowhead,” has since 1848 been regularly hunted in the neighbourhood of Behring Strait and the Okhotsk Sea, where its southern limit, according to Scammon, is about 54°.

Although doubtless individual sperm whales approaching near the shore, especially in the neighbourhood of the right whale fisheries, had often fallen a prey to man, the systematic capture of this species is of recent date compared to that of some other kinds. It began about the end of the seventeenth century, from the Atlantic coasts of North America, especially the part then called New England, at first only from the shore, but afterwards in sea-going vessels from Nantucket, New Bedford, and other ports, which gradually extended their voyages into the Indian and Pacific Oceans. From the year 1775 vessels engaged in this trade (assisted for a time by Government bounties) regularly left the mouth of the Thames for the South Seas, making voyages of three or four years’ duration; but since 1853 the business has been abandoned by the English, and what little remains of it has almost entirely reverted into the hands of the Americans. At one time our Australian Colonies had a considerable number of ships engaged in the sperm whale fishery, and a few still sail every year from Hobart Town. Sperm oil has fallen so greatly in price that its production is now hardly a remunerative industry, and it has found a rival, possessing all the qualities which render it of special value, in the oil of an allied but much smaller species of whale, the bottlenose (_Hyperoodon_), which has consequently become the object of a regular fishery in the North Sea, especially by the Norwegians.

Let me now return to the whales of the Basques, the North Atlantic right whale. It is a singular fact that its existence was quite overlooked by naturalists till lately, all accounts of it which are to be found in the numerous records of European whale fishing having been attributed to the Greenland whale, which was supposed by Cuvier, for instance, to have had formerly a much wider distribution than now, and to have been driven by the persecution of man to its present circumpolar haunts. To the two Danish naturalists Eschricht and Reinhardt is due the credit of having proved its existence as a distinct species from a careful collation of numerous historical notices of its structure, distribution, and habits, and, although they were at one time disposed to think that the species had become extinct, they were able to show that this was not the case, an actual specimen having been captured in the harbour of San Sebastian in January 1854, the skeleton of which Eschricht was fortunate enough to secure for the Copenhagen Museum. More recently other specimens have been captured on the Spanish coast, the Mediterranean, North America, and Norway. A skeleton has fortunately been secured for the British Museum, the exhibition of which is only delayed by the want of a proper room in which it can be mounted. In the North Pacific a very similar if not identical whale is regularly hunted by the Japanese, who tow the carcasses ashore for the purpose of flensing and extracting the whalebone. In the tropical seas, according to Captain Maury’s whale charts, right whales are never or rarely seen, but when the southern temperate seas were explored, they were found to be abundantly inhabited by right whales called “black whales,” so closely similar in character to the Atlantic and Japanese species that, although described and named as if distinct, at present no satisfactory and constant characters have been pointed out by which they can be separated. Of course this may arise from our very imperfect knowledge of these animals, very few specimens[36] having been preserved in museums, and still fewer accurate descriptions and drawings have been made of recently killed individuals, notwithstanding the hundreds of thousands which have been slaughtered from British and American ships during the present century. Just as its northern representative approached the coasts during the winter, and left for the open seas in the summer months, so these southern whales resorted to the bays and inlets of the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, and New Zealand during the southern winter (May to October), and departed for higher latitudes during the remainder of the year.

Though certain numbers of the southern right whales were caught in the open sea by American or Colonial ships engaged mainly in the sperm whale fishery, the principal fishery at one time, as remunerative to those who pursued it as it was destructive to the whales, was carried on from the shore, at first at the Cape, then in Australia and Tasmania, and more recently in New Zealand. Of the latter we have very detailed accounts in many contemporary works, Wakefield, Dieffenbach, and others, and a good epitome of its history will be found in Sherrin’s _Handbook of the Fishery of New Zealand_ (1886). Whaling vessels from America and England were in the habit of visiting the New Zealand seas for the purposes of their trade ever since the beginning of the century, but the first shore station was established in 1827 at Preservation Inlet, near the south end of the Middle Island, and in a few years there were twelve stations between that place and Banks Peninsula. In 1833 Messrs. G. and E. Weller, merchants, of Sydney, founded a whaling establishment at Otago, which was for a short time the most successful and important of any on the coast. In 1834 the whales caught yielded 310 tons of oil, besides bone, and for several years there were on this station from seventy-five to eighty Europeans constantly employed. In 1840 the oil fell off to fourteen tons, and the fishery was abandoned. The value of “black oil” at this time was £8 to £12 a ton in New Zealand, and as much as £30 in London. In other parts of the islands the fishery was continued for a longer period. It is stated that in 1843 the whale fishery on the whole of the coast employed eighty-five boats and some 730 men, and the oil taken amounted to 1290 tons, valued at £20,000, the whalebone being valued at £12,000. After this period the decline in the take became very rapid, and the stations with their great shears for hoisting the bodies of the whales on shore for the purpose of flensing, the furnaces and boiling pots for “trying out” the oil, and the bold and hardy, but unhappily rough and dissolute, inhabitants entirely disappeared from the scene. The cause of this is not difficult to divine. The result was fully anticipated by all who carefully observed what was going on. Almost literally the goose that laid the golden egg was being killed. The whales appeared in the month of May and remained till October. Those that approached nearest to the coast and were the easiest prey to the fishermen were females about to bring forth their young. It was the regular habit of this species of whale to seek at this season some quiet, sheltered harbour, bay, or inlet, and there to remain with the new-born young, until it acquired strength and vigour enough to take care of itself in the open sea. The very affection of the whale for her young thus became the principal cause of its destruction. The whalers soon discovered that if the calf (as they called it) was wounded or caught the mother would never leave it, and they found that the calf, though of no value in itself, being inexperienced and slow, was easily captured, and then the mother became a sure prey. To the old code, regulating the northern whale fisheries, which assigned the whale to the boat which first fixed a harpoon securely in it, they added: “The boat making fast to a calf has a right to the cow, because the cow will not desert her young.” It should be added that strong protests were made against this cruel and in the end unprofitable mode of capture, but they all passed unheeded. The result has been to the southern right whale much the same as that which happened to its Atlantic ally after its persecution by the Basques, although it was brought about in a much shorter space of time. The whale not only became scarce on the New Zealand coasts, but in all parts of its range. To destroy it in its last remaining breeding haunts was to destroy it everywhere. Although we have at present, unfortunately, very little accurate information about the habits and migrations of whales, there is every reason to believe that in the Antarctic summer this species retired nearer the South Pole. Sir James C. Ross in 1840, in lat. 64°, nearly due south of New Zealand, and again in 1842 in nearly the same latitude, south of the Falkland Islands, found right whales very abundant in the month of December. On the strength of this observation it has been thought that a whale corresponding to the Arctic right whale might be a permanent inhabitant of the Antarctic icy seas. Two years ago some ships sailed from Dundee in the hope of meeting with it, but they were completely disappointed. No trace of such whales was found, for doubtless Sir James Ross had only come across the summer haunts of the same whales which were then undergoing the process of ruthless extermination in their winter breeding places on the Australian and New Zealand coasts. Such having been the fate of this species, and the sperm whale not being habitually found in icy seas, the probability of any large whale being again met with in the Antarctic regions is very remote.

Our Colonial whale fisheries are practically extinct, probably never to be revived, at all events with anything like the success they met with formerly. Not that any species of whale is likely to be completely exterminated by man. It is only too easy to exterminate an animal whose habitat is confined to land, especially if that land is of limited extent, as in the case of an island; but the ocean is vast, and the possibilities of escape from pursuers in it are great. When the numbers of any species become so small that it no longer pays to hunt them, they have a chance, as has been most strikingly shown in the case of the North Atlantic or Biscay whale. Without doubt, they would increase again in the southern seas, and if means could be taken to give the whale an effectual close time, the Australian and New Zealand black-whale fishery could be revived, as it has been partially in Tasmania; but the difficulty and expense of establishing any sufficient protection would probably be greater than the value of the produce. Although the better qualities of whalebone still maintain a very high price, owing to their great scarcity, substitutes for it are being gradually invented, and the competition of mineral oils, now found in such abundance in so many parts of the world, and the rapid advances of other methods of lighting have greatly reduced the value of both sperm and train oil. Unless whales can be caught easily and cheaply, they will not be worth catching at all; and this indicates their best chance of maintaining their place in the world, as experience shows that if any profit can be made out of them, the cupidity of man will give them no quarter.