WHALE, a name applied rather loosely to various animals of the order Cetacea, the general characters and classification of which have been described in the article Mammalia (vol. xv. p. 391). All the members of the sub-order Mystacoceti, or Cetacea with whalebone, are called “whales.” But of the Odontoceti, or Cetacea with teeth, only certain of the larger ones are so termed, the smaller species being popularly spoken of as “bottlenoses,” “dolphins,” and “porpoises”; yet so indefinitely has the word been applied that a true dolphin {Delphinus tursw), not exceeding 8 feet in length, is described in some works as the “smaller bottlenosed whale.”
Although by their mode of life so far removed from close observation that it is impossible to become as familiar with them in their natural condition as with many other animals, whales are in many respects the most interesting and wonderful of all creatures; and there is much in their structure and habits which is well worthy of study, much that is difficult to understand, and much that leads to great generalizations and throλvs light upon far-reaching philosophical speculations. One of the first lessons λvhich a study of these animals affords is that, in the endeavour to discover what a creature really is, from what others it is descended, and to what it is related, the general outward appearance affords little clue, and we must go deep below the surface to find out the essential characteristics of its nature. There was once, and may be still in many places, a common idea that a whale is a fish. To realize the fallacy of this notion we have only to consider what a fish really is, what under all the diversities of form, size, and colour known among fishes there is common to them all, and we see that in everything which characterizes a true fish and separates it from other classes, as reptiles, birds, and mammals, the whale resembles the last-named and differs from the fish. It is as essentially a mammal as a cow or a horse, and simply resembles a fish externally because it is adapted to inhabit the same element; but it is no more on that account a fish than is a bat, because adapted to pass a great part of its existence on the wing in the air, nearly related to a bird. The whole structure of a whale is a most instructive instance of a type of organization which is common to and characteristic of the class Mammalia, only specially modified or adapted to a peculiar mode of life. We see in every part the result of two great principles acting and reacting upon each other,—on the one hand, adherence to type, or rather to fundamental inherited structural conditions, and, on the other, adaptation to the peculiar circumstances under which it lives, and to which in all probability it has become gradually more and more fitted. The external fish-like form is perfectly suited for swimming through the water; the tail, however, is not placed vertically as in fishes, but horizontally, a position which accords better with the constant necessity for rising to the surface for the purpose of breathing. The hairy covering characteristic of all mammals, which if present might interfere with rapidity of movement through the water, is reduced to the merest rudiments,—a few short bristles about the chin or upper lip,—which are often only present in very young animals. The function of keeping the body warm is supplied by a thick layer of non-conducting material, the “blubber,” a peculiarly dense kind of fat placed immediately beneath the skin. The fore-limbs, though functionally reduced to mere paddles, with no power of motion except at the shoulder-joint, have beneath their smooth and continuous external covering all the bones, joints, and even most of the muscles, nerves, and arteries, of the human arm and hand; and rudiments even of hind legs are found buried deep in the interior of the animal, apparently subserving no useful purpose, but pointing an instructive lesson to those who are able to read it.
In what follows a more detailed account is given of the best known of those species of Cetacea to which the name “whale” is popularly applied, especially those frequenting British waters, than could be given under Mammalia.
I. Sub-order MYSTACOCETI or Whalebone Whales.
Genus Balaena.—The Greenland, or more properly Arctic, right whale {Balaena mysticetus) attains, when full-grown, a length of from 45 to 50 feet. Its external form is shown in fig. 1, 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 actually larger than that of the body, thorax, 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 mandible are widely separated posteriorly, and have a still further outward sweep before they meet at the symphysis 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 connexion with it, which distinguishes the right whale among all 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 an efficient 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 were 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 jaw-bone 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” of the Okhotsk Sea and Behring Strait belongs to this species, its range is circumpolar. 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 farther. In the Behring Sea, according to Scammon, “it is seldom seen south of the fifty-fifth parallel, which is about the farthest southern extent of the winter ice, while in the Sea of Okhotsk its southern limit is about the latitude of 54°.” As has been abundantly shown by Eschricht and Reinhardt in the case of the Greenland seas, “everything tends to prove,” Scammon says, “that the Balaena mysticetus is truly an ‘ ice whale,’ for among the scattered floes, or about the borders of the ice-fields or barriers, is its home and feeding-ground. It is true that these animals are pursued in the open water during the summer months, but in no instance have we learned of their being captured south of where winter ice-fields are occasionally met with.” The occurrence of this species, therefore, on the British or any European coast is exceedingly unlikely, as when alive and in health the southern limit of its range in the North Sea has been ascertained to be from the east coast of Greenland at 64° N. lat. along the north of Iceland towards Spitzbergen, and a glance at a physical chart will show that there are no currents setting southwards which could bear a disabled animal or a floating carcase to British shores. To this a priori improbability may be added the fact that no authentic instance has been recorded of the capture or stranding of this species upon any European coast, for the cases of its having been reported as seen in British waters may be explained by the supposition of one of the other species of the genus being mistaken for it. Still, as two other Arctic cetaceans, the narwhal and the beluga, have in a few undoubted instances found their way to British shores, it would be rash absolutely to deny the possibility of the Greenland right whale doing the same. Further details of the migrations and habits of this species are given under “Whale Fisheries” (see ρ. 526 below).
The southern right whale (B. australis) resembles the last in the absence of dorsal fin and of longitudinal furrows in the skin of the throat and chest, but differs in that it possesses a smaller head in proportion to its body, shorter baleen, a different-shaped contour of the upper margin of the lower lip, and a greater number of vertebrae. The genus inhabits the temperate seas of both northern and southern hemispheres and is divided into several species according to their geographical distribution :— B. bisca r yensis of the North Atlantic, B. japoηica of the North Pacific, B. australis of the South Atlantic, and B. antipodarum and B. novae-zelandiae of the South Pacific. But the differential characters by which they have been separated, external as well as anatomical, are slight and subject to individual variation; and the number of specimens available for comparison in museums is not yet sufficient to afford the necessary data to determine whether these characters can be regarded as specific or not. The most interesting of these is the right whale, which was formerly abundant in the North Atlantic, but is now so scarce as to appear verging on extinction. This was the whale the pursuit of which gave occupation to a numerous population on the shores of the Basque provinces of France and Spain in the Middle Ages. From the 10th to the 16th centuries Bayonne, Biarritz, St Jean de Luz, and San Sebastian, as well as numerous other towns on the north coast of Spain, were the centres of an active whale “fishery,” which supplied Europe with oil and whalebone. In later times the whales were pursued as far as the coast of Newfoundland. They were, however, already getting scarce when the voyages undertaken towards the close of the 16th century for the discovery of the north-eastern route to China and the East Indies opened out the seas around Spitzbergen; then for the first time the existence of the Greenland whale became known, and henceforth the energies of the European whale-fishers became concentrated upon that animal. It is a singular fact that the existence of the Atlantic right whale was quite overlooked by naturalists till lately, all accounts referring to it being attributed to the Greenland whale, supposed once to have had a wider distribution than now, and to have been driven by the persecution of man to its present circumpolar haunts. To the two Danish cetologists 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 their restoration of the animal, founded upon these documents, has been abundantly confirmed. by the capture of various specimens in recent times, showing that it still lingers in some of the localities where it formerly was so abundant. The only known instances of its occurrence on the coasts of Europe in modern times are in the harbour of San Sebastian in January 1854, in the Gulf of Taranto, in the Mediterranean, in February 1877, and on the Spanish coast between Guetaria and Zarauz (Guipuzcoa) in February 1878. The skeletons of these three whales are preserved in the museums of Copenhagen, Naples, and San Sebastian respectively. On the coast of the United States several of these whales have been taken within the last few years. In the North Pacific a very similar if not identical species is regularly hunted by the Japanese, who tow the carcases ashore for the purposes of flensing and extracting the whalebone. In the tropica! seas, however, according to Captain Maury’s whale charts, right whales are never or rarely seen; but the southern temperate ocean, especially the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope, Kerguelen’s Island, Australia, and New Zealand, is inhabited by “black whales,” once abundant, but now nearly exterminated through the wanton destruction of the females as they visit the bays and inlets round the coast, their constant habit in the breeding time. The range of these whales southward has not been accurately determined; but no species corresponding with the Arctic right whale has as yet been met with in the Antarctic icy seas.
Genus Megaptera.—The whale commonly called “humpback” (Megaptera boons) by whalers, perhaps on account of the low hump-like form of the dorsal fin, is very distinctly characterized from all others of the group, especially by the immense length of the pectoral fins or flippers, which are indented or scalloped along their margins, and are, except at their base, of a white colour, nearly all the rest of the body being black. It differs from the right whale and resembles the rorqual in having the skin of the throat and chest marked with deep longitudinal furrows. The baleen plates are short and broad and of a deep black colour.
Though common in the North Atlantic between Norway and Greenland, this whale does not frequently appear on the coasts of the British Isles. One came ashore at Newcastle in 1839; another, a young one, was taken in the estuary of the Dee in 1863 and its skeleton is preserved in the Liverpool museum; and a nearly full-grown animal was captured in the mouth of the Tay in the winter of 1883-84. The usual length of the adult ranges from 45 to 50 feet. Whales of the genus Megaptera are found in the South Atlantic and in both the North and the South Pacific. They resemble those of British seas so closely that it is doubtful whether the differences which have been observed, and upon which several species have been founded, may not have been individual peculiarities; but zoologists have not yet had the opportunity of examining and comparing such a series of specimens of different ages and sexes from different localities as would be necessary to determine these points satisfactorily.
Genus Balaenoptera.—The rorquals or fin whales have the plicated skin of the throat like that of Megaptera, the furrows being more numerous and close-set; but the pectoral fin is comparatively small and the dorsal fin distinct and falcate. The head is comparatively small and flat, and pointed in front, the baleen 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 some of their modifications 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, and 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 has been established on the coast of Finmark (see p. 528 below). There are four distinct species of this genus in British seas. (1) Balaenoptera sibbaldii, the “blue whale," the largest of all known animals, attains a length of 80 or even sometimes 85 feet. Its colour is dark bluish grey, with small whitish spots on the breast; the baleen is black; the flippers are larger proportionally than in other rorquals, measuring one-seventh of the total length of the body; and the dorsal fin is small and placed very far back. This whale has usually 64 vertebrae, of which 16 bear ribs. Like the others of the genus, this species seems to pass the winter in the open seas, and approaches the coast of Norway at the end of April or beginning of May. At this time its sole food is a small crustacean {Euphausia inermis), which swarms in the fjords. Several specimens have been taken on the British coasts, two fine skeletons from the Firth of Forth being preserved in the Edinburgh museums. (2) Balaenoptera musculus, the common rorqual, has a length of 65 to 70 feet, is of a greyish slate colour above and white underneath, and the baleen is slate colour, variegated with yellow or brown.
It has usually 62 vertebrae, of which 15 bear ribs. This is the commonest of all the large whales on the British coasts; scarcely a winter passes without the body of one being somewhere washed ashore, usually after stormy weather, and more frequently on the south coast, as this species has a more southern range than the last, and frequently enters the Mediterranean. It feeds largely on fish, and is frequently seen feasting among shoals of herrings. (3) Balaenoptera borealis, often called Rudolphi’s whale from its first describer, is a smaller species, scarcely attaining a length of 50 feet. It is bluish black above, with oblong light-coloured spots, whilst the under parts are more or less white; the whole of the tail and both sides of the flippers are black; the baleen is black, and the bristly ends fine, curling, and white; the flippers are very small, measuring one-eleventh of the total length of the body. There are 56 vertebrae, with 14 pairs of ribs. This species, according to Collett, feeds chiefly on minute crustaceans, mainly Calanus finmar-chicus and Euρhausia inermis, and not on fish. Until lately it was considered the rarest of the whalés of European seas, and was only known to science from a few individuals stranded on the coasts of northern Europe at long intervals, the skeletons of which have been preserved in museums. The most southern point at which it has been met with hitherto is Biarritz in France. Since the establishment of the whaling station near the North Cape it has been shown to be a regular summer visitor, and in 1885 771 individuals were captured on the coast of Finmark. (4) Balaenoptera rostrata, the lesser fin whale or rorqual, is the smallest species found in the northern seas, rarely exceeding 30 feet in length. Its colour is greyish black above, whilst the under side is white, including the whole of the lower side of the tail; the inner side of the flippers is white; and there is a broad white band across the outer side, which is a very characteristic mark of the species; the baleen is yellowish white. The dorsal fin in this and the last species is comparatively high, and placed far forwards on the body. This whale has usually 48 vertebrae, of which 11 bear ribs. It is common in summer in the fjords of Norway, and is often seen around the British Isles. It has been taken, though rarely, in the Mediterranean, and it ranges as far north as Davis Strait. Rorquals are met with in almost all seas throughout the world, but further and more accurate observations are required before their specific characters and geographical distribution can be made out. Nearly all the individuals hitherto examined with any care, whether from the North Pacific, the Australian seas, or the Indian Ocean, come very near in structure to one or the other of the Atlantic forms described above, so much so that some zoologists have been induced to believe that there are but four species, each of which has a wide, almost cosmopolitan range, while others have described and named almost every individual specimen captured as belonging to a different species.
Two totally distinct forms of whalebone whales, Rachianectes glaucus, the grey whale of the North Pacific (California and Japan), and Neobalaena marginata of New Zealand, have never been found in the British seas (see vol. xv. p. 395).
IL ODONTOCETI or Toothed Whales.
Only one member of this group, the sperm whale or cachalot (Physeter macrocephalus), rivals the large whalebone whales in size, its length and bulk being about equal to, or somewhat exceeding, the Arctic right whale, from which, however, it is very different in outward appearance and in structure. The head is about one-third of the length of the body, very massive, high and truncated in front, owing its huge size and remarkable form mainly to the great accumulation of a peculiarly modified form of fatty tissue, filling the large hollow on the upper surface of the skull. The oil contained in cells in this great cavity, when refined, yields spermaceti, and the thick covering of blubber, which everywhere envelopes the body, produces the valuable sperm-oil of commerce. The single blowhole is a longitudinal slit, placed at the upper and anterior extremity of the head to the left side of the middle line. 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, broad, and truncated, and the dorsal fin a mere low protuberance. The general colour of the surface is black above and grey below, the colours gradually shading into each other. The only known species of sperm whale is one of the most widely distributed of animals, being met with, usually in herds or “schools,” in almost all tropical and subtropical seas, but not occurring, except accidentally, in the Polaι∙ regions. Not unfrequently specimens appear on the coasts of Great Britain, but only as solitary stragglers, or as dead carcases, floated northwards by the Gulf Stream. It is remarkable that every case of which we have an accurate record has been an old male. 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 substance called “ambergris,” formerly used in medicine and now in perfumery, is a concretion formed in the intestine of this whale, and is 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 remaining Odontoceti are all animals of much smaller size than the sperm whale, but to several of them the name of “whale” is commonly applied. The hyperoodon, sometimes called “bottlenose,” a name also vaguely given to several species of dolphin, is a regular inhabitant of the North Atlantic, passing the summer in the Spitzbergen seas and going farther south in winter. It is allied to the sperm whale, and resembles it in possessing a large store of oil in the upper part of the head, which yields spermaceti when refined; on this account, and also for the sake of the blubber, which supplies an oil almost indistinguishable from sperm oil, this whale has been the object of a regular chase in recent years. It is stated in the article Mammalia (vol. xv. p. 396) that there are two species of this genus, Hyperoodon rostratus, the common hyperoodon, and H. latifroηs, attaining when adult, respectively, the length of 24 and 30 feet; but recent investigations have shown that the latter is the male and the former the female of the same species. They feed exclusively on cephalopods, and are practically toothless; the only teeth which exist in the adult,—namely, a small pair at the front of the lower jaw,—are concealed beneath the gum during life. Smaller allied species, belonging to the genera Ziphius and Mesoplodon, occasionally find their way into British seas, but their proper habitat appears to be the South Seas.
It frequently happens that large herds or “schools” of whales are captured in bays or inlets on the rocky coasts of Scotland, or the Orkney or Shetland Islands. These are the so-called ca’ing or pilot whale (Globicephalus melas), the grindhval of the Faroe Islanders and Norwegians. They attain the length of 20 feet, and are of a nearly uniform black colour, except a line down the middle of the under surface, which is grey. They are characterized by the round or globose form of the fore-part of the head, occasioned by the great development of a cushion of fat placed over the rostrum of the skull in front of the blowhole, and by the great length and narrowness of the pectoral fin. Their destruction in large numbers, amounting sometimes to hundreds at a time, arises from their eminently sociable character and their habit, when attacked, of rushing together and blindly following the leaders of the herd. When they are seen in the neighbourhood of land, the fishermen endeavour to get to seaward of them in their boats, and with shouting and firing of guns to drive them into a bay or íjord, pursuing them until they run themselves on shore in their alarm.
The beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) is often called the “white whale,” though scarcely exceeding the length of 12 feet. Its colour is almost pure white, and it has no dorsal fin, but a low ridge in its place. It is an inhabitant of the Arctic seas, extending on the American coast as far south as the river St Lawrence, which it ascends for a considerable distance. Several instances of its occurrence on the coast of Scotland are recorded, and it has been kept for some time in captivity in America, and even in London. Its external characters are represented in vol. xv. p. 399, fig. 50.
The other cetaceans of this group are generally distinguished as narwhals, grampuses, killers, bottlenoses, dolphins, and porpoises, and are not usually called whales.
We have no certain knowledge of the existence of whalebone whales before the latter part of the Eocene period. The earliest known forms were allied to the existing Balaenoptcrae. Right whales (Balaena), as might be expected in the case of such a highly specialized form, have not been found older than the Pliocene; and it is interesting to note that, instead of the individuals diminishing in bulk as we approach the times we live in, as with many other groups of animals, the contrary has been the case, no known extinct species of whale equalling in size those that are now to be met with in the ocean. The size of whales, as of all other things whose most striking attribute is magnitude, has been greatly exaggerated; but, when reduced to the limits of sober fact, the Greenland right whale of 50 feet long, the sperm whale of 60, and the great northern rorqual {Balaenoptera sibbaldiι) of 80 exceed all other organic structures known, past or present. Instead of living in an age of degeneracy of physical groλvth, we are in an age of giants, but, it may be, at the end of that age. Through countless ages of time whales have been gradually shaped into their present wonderful form and gigantic size; but the very perfection of their structure and their magnitude combined, the rich supply of oil protecting their internal parts from cold, the beautiful apparatus of whalebone by which their nutrition is provided for, have been fatal gifts, which, under the sudden revolution produced on the surface of the globe by the. development of the wants and arts of civilized man, cannot but lead to their extinction in the not far future. (W. H. F.)
Whale Fisheries.
Commercially these may be convenientjy classified under three heads,—the British, the American, and the Norwegian. The implements used, and the mode of capture of the different kinds of whales, being for the most part the same in all cases, the detailed account given below may be held to be of general application, unless the contrary is expressly stated.
The whaler is a vessel of from 400 to 500 tons gross register, rigged either as a ship or a barque, and provided with auxiliary engines of some 75 horse-power. Built after the strongest fashion, she is protected along the water-line by an additional planking of iron bark, an Australian wood of great hardness; the bows are strengthened inside by beams and knees and outside by plates of iron. Underneath the hold-beams about 50 iron tanks are fitted, each capable of containing 200 to 250 tons of oil; above the holdbeams a deck is laid, engine and boiler space being reserved in the stem. A vessel of this description carries 8 whale-boats, and is manned by 50 to 60 hands all told. Her working expenses at sea, exclusive of insurance and interest on capital, are about £500 per month, and her cost as she leaves the builder’s hands, supplied with all appurtenances, but exclusive of sea stores, is about £17,500. The whale-boat is 27 feet in length and 6 feet in breadth, with a depth amidships of 2 feet 6 inches. The bow is covered in for the distance of a few feet, forming a sort of platform, through which there project two wooden posts, that farthest forward being called the “gun-bollard head,” on which the harpoon gun is mounted, while round the other, farther aft, the whale-line is run. At the stem, between the “head boards,” a pulley is sunk, over which the whale-line glides. On the port bow, beside the gunbollard head, a small tub is fitted, into which is coiled that part of the whale-line known as the “foregoer.” The after-part of the boat, as well as a part amidships, is fitted up for the reception of the whale-line. The whale-boat is manned by five oarsmen and a boat-steerer. The bow oar acts as harpooner and has charge of the boat; the stroke oar is “line-manager” and watches the whaleline while it is running. The harpoon gun, now almost universally used, measures 4 feet 6 inches in length and weighs 75 ïb; the barrel is 3 feet long with 1⅜ inches bore and is mounted in a wooden stock, tapering behind into a pistol handle. The weapon is fired by means of percussion caps, doghead, and trigger-line, the nipples being protected from sea spray by a movable brass cover. Mounted in a swivel on the gun-bollard head, the harpoon gun from its elevated position commands both bows as well as right ahead; and with a charge of 11 drachms of powder it projects the harpoon with force and precision to a distance of 25 yards. Harpoons are of two kinds, known respectively as gun and hand harpoons; the former are used as weapons of attack, the latter to assist in securing a whale that is already harpooned. The gun harpoon measures 4 feet in length and weighs 12 îb. The “shank,” or that part which enters the gun, is perforated throughout its length by an elongated slit, so as to allow the “shackle” connecting the harpoon with the line to remain outside the mouth of the gun when the shank is inserted in the barrel. When the gun is fired, the shackle travels along the slit until it is brought up by the butt, where the two rods of which the shank is composed unite, and after that the line is drawn out by the harpoon. The head of the harpoon is triangular and flattened, the two sides being continued backwards to form the barbs, which may be movable or fixed. When movable, they are attached to the head by steel pins, and previous to being fired fold backwards and lie parallel to the shank; the weapon having pierced a whale, and the strain on the whale-line causing it to retract, the barbs spread out and assume a transverse position, so as greatly to impede the withdrawal of the instrument. The hand harpoon is a light and efficient weapon, which was introduced by the Americans, by whom it is known as a “toggle iron.” It consists of a head and shank of iron, and is mounted on a wooden stock, by which it is darted. The head, a flattened piece of steel, somewhat triangular in form, is connected with the extremity of the shank by a steel pin, on which it pivots and moves freely. Previous to use the head folds back along the shank, in which position it is retained by a wooden pin. After the weapon has been darted into a whale, the strain on the line breaks the wooden pin, and the head assumes a position at right angles to the shank, somewhat in the form of the letter T, and becomes transfixed in the fibrous tissue under the blubber. The shank is a rod of ⅜-inch iron, 2 feet 6 inches long, expanding at its upper extremity to form a socket to receive the wooden stock. The hand harpoon measures 8 feet in length, and, exclusive of the line, weighs 10 lb. Expert harpooners can dart the weapon about 5 yards with considerable force and accuracy. Whale-line is three-stranded rope, 2∣ inches in circumference, composed of the finest hemp, 32 yarns per strand; 600 fathoms are coiled into each whale-boat. The line is joined to the harpoon by the “foregoer,” a piece of rope somewhat lighter and more pliable than whale-line. The foregoer being the only part of the line drawn out by the harpoon while in flight, its length, usually from 10 to 12 fathoms, regulates the distance the harpoon may be fired. The whale-lance consists of a simple rod of ⅛-inch iron, 6 feet long, one end flattened to form a small lance-shaped point with cutting edges, the other expanding to form a socket to receive a short wooden handle. Gun lances, bomb lances, and exploding harpoons of various forms and devices have from time to time been introduced; but, mainly from the fact that in recent years the difficulty in securing a cargo lies not so much in effecting the capture of the animal as in discovering its whereabouts, and in approaching sufficiently near to permit the use of the harpoon, they have never come into general use.
Whether the ship is cruising amongst loose ice under canvas or lying “made fast” to a floe, a careful look-out is kept on board from the crow’s nest (a barrel lashed to the main-top-gallant masthead) as well as from the deck. Immediately on a whale being seen, boats are manned and sent in pursuit. If the animal is feeding, which it generally does when near the surface by swimming backwards and forwards horizontally round an ellipse, great caution is necessary to prevent its becoming aware of the approach of the boats. On the other hand, if the whale is “spanning,” t.e., swimming in a decided direction and appearing at the surface at intervals more or less regular, less caution is observed. In either case as well as under less usual circumstances the whale-boat, endeavouring to keep out of the angle of vision of the animal, approaches it from behind, swiftly but quietly; the harpooner rises to his gun and points it at the animal’s back, withholding his fire, however, until within as short a distance as possible. On being harpooned the Greenland right whale usually dives perpendicularly, remaining under water about forty minutes and drawing out some 600 to 700 fathoms of line before it returns to the surface. Whales descend with such velocity that they have been known to break their upper jaw by coming into violent contact with the bottom even in 400 fathoms of water. Before the animal has returned to the surface other boats have arrived upon the scene, and, on the reappearance of the whale, give chase and attach more harpoons. Again the whale dives, but soon returns to the surface, still more exhausted. Whenever its motions become sufficiently slow to permit the approach of the boats, the lance is used, a few thrusts in the region of the heart or lungs being speedily fatal. Quantities of blood are thrown up by the spiracles; the animal lashes the water with its fins, and, after rushing violently through the water in its dying agony, rolls over on its side and lies stiff and rigid at the surface. Under favourable circumstances the capture of a full-çrown whale from the time of first harpooning until its death occupies from one to one and a half hours. The operation of flensing is next performed. The body of the whale is lashed lengthwise alongside the ship with its under surface above water; the “cant-purchase,” a powerful tackle, is then attached to the commencement of a transverse slip of blubber cut at the neck, known as the “cant-piece.” By means of the cant-purchase the body is caused to rotate, whilst the fat is removed from the different parts as they appear above water in large “slips” or “blanket-pieces,” each a ton or more in weight. After being received on deck, the blubber is cut into pieces about a foot square and stowed into the “’tween-decks.” The whalebone is removed from each side of the upper jaw as it appears above water en bloc. The process of “cutting-in” occupies the ship’s company about three hours. The only subsequent operations are the cutting up of the blubber into small pieces and its stowage in the oil tanks. The removal of the gum from the whalebone, the separation of the plates, and their stowage in the ’tween decks are operations performed. subsequently.
British Fisheries. Greenland Right Whale.— The Greenland right whale {Balaena mysticetus) is found amongst, or in the near vicinity of, the Polar ice. Its habitat, however, is materially reduced in extent by the shallowness of many parts of the Arctic Ocean— e.g., of the Barents and Kara Seas and the sea to the north of Siberia—localities where the species is quite unknown. The fishing is prosecuted off Greenland and in Davis Strait by the British, and at Behring Strait by the Americans.
Sailing either directly from the home ports in April or proceeding thither after prosecuting the sealing, the British whale ships arrive at the north Greenland whaling-grounds off the west coast of Spitzbergen early in May. If it is a “close” season, í.e., if the ice of the Barents Sea comes west round the south end of Spitzbergen, and effects a junction with the Greenland ice, so as to form a southeast pack, the ships have sometimes to force their way through several hundred miles of ice before reaching the grounds. On the other hand, if it is an “open” season, as more usually occurs, the barrier ice in lat. 80° may be reached without hindrance. In cruising for whales certain indications are sought which the whalemen know by experience to be favourable to the appearance of the animal. The first of these is “whaling ice,” or moderately loose ice with close pack or floes in the neighbourhood. The second is abundance of food. The presence of this condition may be ascertained by a surface net, or it may be inferred from the colour of the water, which varies from the barrenness of clear cold cerulean to the richness of opaque and warm olive green. The crustacean Calanus finmarchicus, the pteropod Clioηe limacina, and the gasteropod Limacina helicina are amongst the most abundant forms, the first-mentioned contributing perhaps nine-tenths of the whale’s food. Yet very little is known positively as to the food of the Greenland right whale. According to whalemen (and the idea has hitherto been generally accepted by naturalists), the animal lives upon various invertebrate forms, such as Actiniae, Schiae, Cliones, Medusae, Cancri, and Helices. Scoresby states that some of these genera are always to be seen wherever whales are found stationary and feeding. Dr John Murray, however, is of opinion that whales also resort for food to the larger forms of pelagic fauna which exist in the immediate vicinity of the bottom of the ocean, and the {>resence of which was ascertained during the course of the “Chal-enger” investigations. The third condition is abundance of the higher forms of life, such as birds, especially guillemots {Uria grylla) and looms (Alca arra), also narwhals (Monodon monoceros), seals, bears, &c. The whales make their appearance amongst the ice near the sea edge about 15th May, but only remain in the locality until the opening of the barrier ice permits them to resume their northward journey, for usually about the middle of June they suddenly disappear from these grounds, and are last seen going north-west. The north Greenland whale-fishing is then over for the season. If unsuccessful in obtaining a cargo at the northern grounds, the whale ships next proceed southwards as far as lat. 75°; then, if the sea is sufficiently open, they penetrate westwards until the coast of Greenland is visible. There they cruise amongst the ice until August, when the darkness of the nights puts an end to the fishing.
If the south-west fishing is first prosecuted, the vessels arrive at the ice edge near Resolution Island in April. Here, although numbers of large whales are usually seen, yet, owing to the boisterous weather and the compact nature of the ice, the fishing is seldom very successful, so that the majority of the vessels, after prosecuting the “saddle” sealing at Newfoundland or Greenland, proceed direct to Disco, where they usually arrive early in May. The whales make their appearance at South-East Bay about 15th May, and here, where once a great fishing was carried on, a few whales may be killed. The dangerous passage of Melville Bay is next performed and the whale ships, entering the north water in June, push on towards the sounds. If there is a “land-floe across,” i.e., if the land-ice of the west side is continuous across the entrance of Ponds Bay and Lancaster Sound, whales will be seen in considerable numbers and good cargoes may be obtained; but immediately the land-floe breaks up the whales depart to the westward. When there is no land-floe across, the whales proceed at once into the secluded waters of Eclipse Sound and Prince Regent Inlet, where they resort during the summer months. At this season of the year most of the vessels cruise in the sounds, while a few search the middle ice, until the darkness of the August nights compels them to seek an anchorage in some of the harbours of the west side, where they await the return of the whales south. This migration takes place on the formation of young ice in the sounds, usually in the latter part of September. Only the larger individuals, however, and the great majority of these males, come close down along the land of the west side. These the ships send their boats out to intercept, and this forms the inshore fishing or “rock-nosing ”, which is continued until the formation of young ice drives the vessels out of their harbours, usually early in October.
A few vessels, American as well as British, occasionally enter Hudson’s Bay and prosecute the fishing in the neighbourhood of Southampton Island, and even enter Fox Channel. There are whaling-stations in Cumberland Inlet, and a few vessels usually remain all winter, ready to take advantage of the opening of the ice in the following spring. Here the young as well as the old whales make their appearance in May; the former have migrated south during the previous autumn amongst the archipelago of islands forming the west side into Fox Channel, thence by Hudson’s Strait to the pack-ice off Resolution Island, where, together with the old whales, they probably winter. Early in May the whalemen drag their boats over the ice to the open water at the floe edge, and the whales are seen amongst the pack-ice in the offing, the younger whales being nearest the land-floe. Encampments are formed along the floe edge, and the fishing is continued until the whales migrate north in June.
The average full-grown Greenland right whale yields about 15 tons of oil and 15 cwts. of whalebone, although individuals are occasionally killed which yield nearly 30 tons of oil and 30 cwts. of whalebone. The whalebone consists of about 590 slips, the longest measuring 10 feet 6 inches and weighing 5⅛ lb in an average animal, 12 feet 6 inches and 9⅜ lb in a very large one. The following table shows the returns of these fisheries from 1860 to 1886 inclusive, in so far as British vessels were concerned. It will be seen that a constant decrease has taken place both in the number of whales killed and in the total value of the produce. The price to which oil has fallen little more than pays the expense and trouble attending its being taken on board and its subsequent preparation for the market, and there can be little doubt that, but for the high price which whalebone commands, the fishing would long ere this have been abandoned as unremunerative. [table]
History.— As already stated (see above, p. 524) a right whale fishery of great importance was prosecuted in the temperate waters of the Atlantic at a very early period, more especially by the hardy seamen of the Basque provinces from the 10th to the 16th century. Authorities are now agreed that the whale pursued was Balaena biscayensis, which differs from B. mysticetus in its smaller size, its greater activity, and its more southern distribution. The Greenland right whale fishery owes its origin to Henry Hudson’s first voyage to Greenland and Spitzbergen in 1607. His glowing accounts of the great numbers of whales and morses led to the despatch of Jonas Poole to the Greenland Sea by the Muscovy Company, and the success of his four voyages (1609-1612) speedily attracted the vessels of other nations. For a time the English endeavoured to obtain a monopoly of the fishing; but, the other nations resisting, hostilities were engaged in, which resulted in the discomfiture of the English by a Dutch fleet in 1618. Thereafter it was agreed that different parts of the Spitzbergen coast should be allotted to different nationalities. The English interest in the industry, however, declined, and the fishing fell mainly into the hands of the Dutch, who until 1640 also carried on an important fishing in the seas surrounding the island of Jan Mayen. Meanwhile they did not neglect the Spitzbergen fishery, in which 10,019 whales were taken by them in the ten years 1679-1688. About 1680, when their fishing was probably at its most prosperous stage, they had 260 vessels and 14,000 seamen employed. Their fishery continued to flourish on almost as extensive a scale until 1770, when it began to decline, and finally, owing to the war, came to a close before the end of the century. At the same time the Germans prosecuted the fishing to a very considerable extent: 79 vessels from Hamburg and Bremen were employed in 1721, and during the fifty years 1670-1719 an average of 45 vessels sailed yearly from Hamburg alone. German vessels continued to engage in the fishing until 1873. The Spaniards, although they took part in the pursuit at an early date, and appear at first to have supplied the skilled portion of the crews of the English and Dutch vessels, never seem to have engaged largely in the northern fishery; 20 of their vessels were employed in it in 1721, but before the end of the century they had entirely abandoned the occupation. The Danes, although likewise early appearing on the Spitzbergen fishing-grounds, never pursued the industry on a large scale until after the commencement of the Davis Strait fishing in 1721, in which year they had 90 sail engaged; in 1803 the number had fallen to 35. As for the English fishing, although sundry attempts had been made to revive it, notably in 1673 and in 1725 (the latter year by the South Sea Company), it was not until a bounty of 20s. per ton on the burden of the ships employed, granted in 1733, had been increased to 40s. in 1749 that the industry began to revive; in the same year vessels sailed from Scotland for the first time. Notwithstanding the reduction of the bounty to 30s. the number of ships sailing from British ]>orts in 1787 amounted to 255. In 1814 the value of the gross freights of the Greenland and Davis Strait fleets amounted to £700,000, and in the same year the “Resolution” of Peterhead, Captain Souter, returned from Greenland with 44 whales, producing 299 tons of oil, the largest cargo ever brought into Great Britain. In 1824 the bounty was finally withdrawn. Since that time, owing to the scarcity of whales, and still more to their increasing shyness, caused in a great measure by the injudicious use of steam, the returns of the fishery have been gradually decreasing and the vessels employed have become fewer.
Sperm Whale.— Since 1853 British vessels have ceased to prosecute this fishing. Begun in 1775, the British sperm whale fishing soon increased and by 1791 had assumed considerable importance, when the vessels engaged numbered 75, all hailing from London. It was British sperm whalemen who opened up the whaling-grounds of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
American Fisheries.
The American whale fisheries embrace the Behring’s Strait or Arctic fishery and the sperm whale or southern fishery.
Greenland Right Whale.— As already mentioned above, the object of this fishery is the capture of Balaena mysticetus. In this case, however, the whales are mostly sought, not among the ice, but in open water, the vessels used being less adapted to ice navigation than those of the British, and nearly all are propelled by sail power alone. The hand harpoon is preferred and bomb lances are used to kill the whales. The vessels sail mostly from San Francisco in March, and arrive at the ice edge off Cape Navarin, where the fishing is first prosecuted, in May. The whales disappear during summer, but return in the autumn, when the “fall” fishing is carried on in the neighbourhood of Point Barrow; between seasons the vessels go south and prosecute the sperm whaling. The Behring Strait fishery was commenced in 1848, and in the three following years 250 ships obtained cargoes. In 1871 34 vessels were abandoned in the ice off Cape Belcher, the crews making good their escape to other vessels; again in 1876 12 vessels experienced a similar fate.
Sperm Whale.— The capture of the sperm whale {Physeter macro-eeρhalus) is prosecuted, throughout the tropical seas of the globe. The distribution of the animal being, however, restricted to deep water, the fishing is usually carried on at a distance from land. The vessels used are generally barques of about 300 tons, carrying five boats and manned by a crew of thirty hands all told. The vessels have no particular time for sailing or aιτiving in port; the duration of a voyage is generally three years. The sperm whale is killed in the same manner as the Greenland right whale; the use of the hand harpoon is, however, preferred; and the whale-boats, which are not required to withstand contact with ice, are less strongly built, and much lighter and swifter than those used in the northern fisheries. The ordinary sperm whale yields about 60 barrels of oil ( = 10 tons), although large males are occasionally killed which yield a greater quantity. The oil is boiled at sea; hence its freedom from smell and the consequent high price which it commands as compared with that of the bottlenose whale.
Sperm whale fishing seems to have commenced early in the 18th century, the whaling community of Nantucket embarking in the industry about 1712; and in 1774, before the commencement of the War of Independence, a fleet of 360 vessels was engaged in it. This fishery perhaps reached its climax in 1846, when it occupied a total of 735 vessels, having an aggregate capacity of 233,199 tons. During the period 1877 to 1886 inclusive the average annual number of vessels employed was 159, their average annual aggregate burden being 35,713 tons. The average annual imports into the United States of whaling produce were as follows:—of sperm oil 31,824 barrels ( = 5304 tons), of whale oil 29,180 barrels ( = 4863 tons), of whalebone 325,559 Ib ( = 145 tons). New Bedford and San Francisco are the principal whaling-ports.
Norwegian Fisheries.
The Norwegian fisheries include that of the fin whale and that of the bottle-nose whale.
Fin Whale.— Associated with this fishery is the name of Svend Foyn, the seaman who first invented apparatus to attack successfully the large and active fin whales which abound in northern seas, and at certain seasons frequent the fjords of the north coast of Norway. The principal feature of the whaling gear is the use of an exploding harpoon, which virtually kills the animal immediately it is struck. Owing to its weight, a gun of large size is required to throw the harpoon, and in turn a craft of considerable burden is required to carry the gun. The harpoon bears a shell containing ∣ lb powder and weighs 123 îb; the gun, 4∣ inches thick at the muzzle, with 3 inches bore, requires a charge of 1 îb powder, and weighs about 15 cwts.; the vessel answering the purpose of a whaleboat is a steamer of about 80 tons burden and 30 horse-power. It is used not only for carrying the gun and pursuing the whales but also for towing the bodies of the animals when dead to the “factory” on shore, where the operation of flensing is performed. The whales hunted (in the order of their size and relative value) are (1) the blue whale {Balaenoptera sibbaldii), (2) the humpback {Megaρtera longimana), (3) the common rorqual {Balaenoptera musculus}, (4) Rudolphi’s rorqual {B. borealis), and (5) the lesser rorqual (B. rostrata). All are killed for their oil, which is much inferior in quality to that of the Greenland right whale, for their whalebone, which is short and brittle, and for their bones and flesh, which are converted into manure. The whalers hail from the south of Norway (Sandefjord, Tönsberg, &c.), and have their whaling stations or “factories” on the fjords along the coast of Finmark. The fishing is prosecuted only in summer. In 1884 450 fin whales were killed, in 1885 1398, and in 1886 954.
Bottlenose Whale.— The bottlenose whale CHyρeroodon rostratus) abounds during summer in the northern seas adjacent to the ice edge, from the Labrador coast on the west to Nova Zembla on the east, but more particularly in the neighbourhood of Jan Mayen and Iceland, where the fishing is usually prosecuted during May, June, and July. Previous to May the weather is generally too stormy, and about the middle of July the whales, although hitherto numerous, suddenly disappear. The average-sized bottlenose whale yields 22 cwts. of oil, 5 per cent, of which is spermaceti; the oil is superior even to sperm as a lubricant. Although the whale-ships had frequented the northern seas for centuries, and sailed over the haunts of these animals season after season, it was not until recent years that they were discovered to exist there in immense numbers. The fishing may be said to date from the capture of 203 of these animals by the “Eclipse,” Captain David Gray, of Peterhead in 1882. In the following year a number of British vessels took up the fishing, and at the same time the Norwegians embarked in it to such an extent that the market was soon glutted with oil, and the price fell from £55 per ton to £18, which no longer renders the industry remunerative to British vessels. A fleet of about thirty small sailing vessels annually leaves the Norwegian ports to prosecute this fishing. In 1885 they killed over 1300 whales and in 1886 about 1700.
Ziterαiure.—On British whale fisheries, see Scoresby, Arctic Regions, Voyage to the Greenland Sea in 1822 ∖ M , Culloch, Diet, of Commerce·, Markham, Whaling Cruise ; Southwell, “Notes on the Sealand whale Fisheries,” in Zoologist, 1884, &c.; F. D. Bennett, Whaling Voyage round the Globe, 1833-36 ; and Beale, The Sperm Whale and its Captors, 1839. On American whale fisheries the following works may be consulted:—Starbuck, Hist, of Amer. Whale Fishery from its Earliest Inception to 1876; Report of U. S. Comm, of Fisheries, 1875, vol. iv.; Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchants' Transcript (New Bedford); and Scammon, Mammalia of North-Western America, 1874. On the Norwegian whale fisheries there are various papers in the Zoologist, by A. H. Cocks, 1884 and succeeding years.
