Whale hunting with gun and camera / A naturalist's account of the modern shore-whaling industry, of whales and their habits, and of hunting experiences in various parts of the world

by Roy Chapman Andrews

[6]. (l. c., p. 71, note.)

The skull of an eighty-foot blue whale, the skeleton of which was sent to the American Museum of Natural History from Japan. When crated for shipment the skull had a space measurement of twenty-one tons.

CHAPTER XIII
THE GREYHOUND OF THE SEA

The finback whale is the greyhound of the sea, and well deserves the name, for its beautiful, slender body is built like a racing yacht and the animal can surpass the speed of the fastest ocean steamship.

It is a hard whale to kill and trouble can always be expected if the iron strikes too far back. The first one I ever hunted gave us a four hours’ fight, with two harpoons in its body, and furnished abundant proof of what a truly magnificent creature the finback is.

It was while I was with Captain Charles Grahame on the Tyee in Alaska. We had had an exciting experience with a humpback whale which rose under the ship (described in Chapter III), and after killing it had steamed toward several finbacks which were spouting far away near the coast. The huge brutes were feeding and lying on the surface rolling from side to side, thrusting their fins and flukes into the air. I could see, with the glass, that always when taking a mouthful of shrimps they turned on their sides, letting the great under jaws close over the upper, the water spurting out in streams from between the plates of baleen.

“The finback whale is the greyhound of the sea ... for its beautiful slender body is built like a racing yacht and the animal can surpass the speed of the fastest ocean steamship.”

As the vessel neared the whales the signal was sounded for half speed, and quietly she slid through the water toward two big finbacks which were leisurely swimming along close together. Intent on the feed which floated in patches at the surface and stained the water a light pink, the whales paid not the slightest attention to the steamer which was creeping so slowly and quietly near them. They went down in front of the bow, just out of range, but without arching their backs, showing that the dive would be a short one; and so it proved, for they reappeared only ten fathoms away on the port bow.