Of the Greenland Sea Animals, and Sea Fowls and Fishes.

THE Greenland Sea abounds in different sorts of animals, fowls, and fishes, of which the whale bears the sway, and is of divers kinds, shapes, and sizes. Some are called the finned whales, from the fins they have upon their back near the tail; but these are not much valued, yielding but little fat or blubber, and that of the meaner sort; they consist of nothing but lean flesh, sinews, and bones. They are of a long, round, and slender shape, very{67} dangerous to meddle with, for they rage and lay about them most furiously with their tail, so that nobody cares to come at them, or catch them. The Greenlanders make much of them, on account of their flesh, which, with them, passes for dainty cheer. The other sort of whales are reckoned the best for their fat, and fins or whalebones. These differ from the first sort, in that they have no fin on the back towards the tail, but two lesser ones near the eyes, and are covered with a thick black skin, marbled with white strokes. With these side fins they swim with an incredible swiftness. The tail is commonly three or four fathoms broad. The head makes up one-third of the whole fish. The jaws are covered, both above and beneath, with a kind of short hair. At the bottom of the jaws are placed the so called barders, or whalebones, which serve him instead of teeth, of which he has none. They are of different colours, some brown, some black, and others yellow with white streaks. Within the mouth, the barders or whalebones are covered{68} with hair like horse-hair, chiefly those that inclose the tongue. Some of them are bent like a scymitar, or sabre. The smallest are ranged the foremost in the mouth, and the hindermost near the throat; the broadest and largest are in the middle, some of them two fathoms long, by which we may judge of the vast bigness of this animal. On each side there are commonly two hundred and fifty, in all five hundred pieces. They are set in a broad row, as in a sheaf, one close to the other, bent like a crescent or half-moon, broadest at the root, which is of a tough and grisly matter, of a whitish colour, fastened to the upper part of the jaws near the throat, and they grow smaller towards the end, which is pointed; they are also covered with hair, that they may not hurt the tongue. The undermost jaw is commonly white, to which the tongue is fastened, inclosed in the barders, or long whale bones; it is very large, sometimes about eighteen feet, and sometimes more, of a white colour, with black spots, of a soft, fat, and spungy matter. The{69} whale has a bunch on the top of his head, in which are two spouts or pipes, parallel one to the other, and somewhat bent, like the holes upon a fiddle. Through these he receives the air, and spouts out the water, which he takes in at his mouth, and is forced upwards through these holes in very large quantities, and with such violence and noise, that it is heard at a great distance, by which, in hazy weather, he is known to be near, especially when he finds himself wounded, for then he rages most furiously, and the noise of his spouting is so loud, that some have resembled it to the roaring of the sea in a storm, or the firing of great guns, His eyes are placed between the bunch and the side fins; they are not larger than those of an ox, and are armed with eyebrows.

The penis of a whale is a strong sinew, seven or eight, and sometimes fourteen feet long, in proportion to his bulk: it is covered with a sheath, in which it lies hidden, so that you see but little of it: the nature of the female is like that of the four-footed animals: she has two{70} breasts with teats like a cow; some white, others stained with black or blue spots. In their spawning time their breasts are larger than usual; and when they couple together, they reach their head above water, to fetch breath, and to cool the heat contracted by that action. It is said, that they never bring forth more than two young ones at a spawning, which they suck with their teats. The spawn of the whale, while it is fresh, is clammy and gluish, so that it may be drawn out in threads like wax or pitch; it has no relation to that which we call spermaceti, for it is soon corrupted and by no art can be preserved.

These sea animals, or rather monsters, are of different sizes and bulks; some yield one hundred, and some two or three hundred tuns of fat or blubber. The fat lies between the skin and the flesh, six or eight inches thick, especially upon the back and under the belly. The thickest and strongest sinews are in the tail, which serves him for a rudder, as his fins do for oars, wherewith he swims with an astonishing{71} swiftness, proportioned to his bulk, leaving a track in the sea, like a great ship; and this is called his wake, by which he is often followed.

These sea monsters are as shy and timorous as they are huge and bulky, for as soon as they hear a boat rowing, and perceive any body’s approach, they immediately shoot under water and plunge into the deep; but when they find themselves in danger, then they shew their great and surprising strength; for then they break to pieces whatever comes in their way, and if they should hit a boat, they would beat it in a thousand pieces. According to the relation of the whale-catchers, the whale, being struck, will run away with the line some hundreds of fathoms long, faster than a ship under full sail. Now one would think, that such a vast body should need many smaller fishes and sea animals to feed upon; but on the contrary, his food is nothing but a sort of blubber, called pulmo marinus, or whale food, which is of a dark brown colour, with two brims or{72} flaps, with which it moves in the water, with such slowness that one may easily lay hold of it, and get it out of the water. It is like a jelly, soft and slippery, so that if you crush it between your fingers you find it fat and greasy like train oil. The Greenland seas abound in it, which allures and draws this kind of whales thither in search of it; for as their swallow or throat is very narrow (being but four inches in diameter), and the smaller whalebones reaching down his throat, they cannot swallow any hard or large piece of other food, having no teeth to chew it with, so that this sort of nourishment suits them best, their mouth being large and wide to receive a great quantity, by opening it and shutting it again, that nature has provided them with the barders or whalebones, which by their closeness only give passage to the water, like a sieve, keeping back the aliment. Here we ought to praise the wise and kind providence of an Almighty Creator, who has made such mean things suffice for the maintenance of so vast an animal.{73}

Next to this there is another sort of whales, called the North Capers, from the place of their abode, which is about the North cape of Norway, though they also frequent the coasts of Iceland, Greenland, and sundry other seas, going in search of their prey, which is herring and other small fish, that resort in abundance to those coasts. It has been observed, that some of these North Cape whales have had more than a tun of herrings in their belly. This kind of whales has this common with the former called fin-whale, in that it is very swift and quick in its motion, and keeps off from the shore in the main sea, as fearing to become a prey to its enemies, if it should venture too near the shore. His fat is tougher and harder than that of the great bay whale; neither are his barders or bones so long and valuable, for which reason he is neglected.

The fourth sort is the sword-fish, so called from a long and broad bone, which grows out of the end of his snout on both sides, indented like a saw. He has got two fins upon his back,{74} and four under the belly, on each side two: those on the back are the largest; those under the belly are placed just under the first of the back: his tail broad and flat underneath, and above pointed, but not split or cloved. From the hindermost fin of the back he grows smaller: his nostrils are of an oblong shape: the eyes are placed on the top of his head, just above his mouth. There are different sizes of sword-fish, some of twenty feet, some more, some less. This is the greatest enemy the true whale has to deal with, who gives him fierce battles; and, having vanquished and killed him, he contents himself with eating the tongue of the whale, leaving the rest of the huge carcase for the prey and spoils of the morses and sea birds.

The cachelot or pot-fish is a fifth species of whales, whose shape is somewhat different from that of other whales, in that the upper part of his head or skull is much bigger and stronger built; his spouts or pipes are placed on the forehead, whereas other whales have them on{75} the hinder part of the head: his under jaw is armed with a row of teeth which are but short: his tongue is thin and pointed, and of a yellowish colour: he has but one eye on the side of the head, which makes him of easy access to the Greenlanders, who attack him on his blind side. Of his skull that wrongly so called spermaceti is prepared, one yielding twenty to twenty-four tuns thereof. The rest of the body and the tail are like unto those of other whales. He is of a brownish colour on the back, and white under the belly: he is of different sizes, from fifty to seventy feet long.

Then comes the white fish, whose shape is not unlike that of the great bay whale, having no fins upon the back, but underneath two large ones; the tail like a whale; his spouts, through which he breathes and throws out the water, are the same; he has likewise a bunch on the head: his colour is of a fading yellow; he is commonly from twelve to sixteen feet in length, and is exceeding fat. The train of his blubber is as clear as the clearest oil: his flesh{76} as well as the fat has no bad taste, and when it is marinated with vinegar and salt, it is as well tasted as any pork whatsoever. The fins also and the tail, pickled or sauced, are good eating. This fish is so far from being shy, that whole droves are seen about the ships at sea: the Greenlanders catch numbers of them, of which they make grand cheer.

There is yet another smaller sort of whales, called but-heads, from the form of its head, which at the snout is flat, like a but’s end: he has a fin upon his back towards the tail, and two side fins: his tail is like to that of a whale. In the hinder part of the head he has a pipe to fetch air, and spout the water through, which he does not spout out with that force the whale does: his size is from fourteen to twenty feet: he follows ships under sail with a fair wind, and seems to run for a wager with them; whereas, on the contrary, other whales avoid and fly from them. Their jumping, as well as that of fishes and sea animals, forebodes boisterous and stormy weather.{77}

Among the different kinds of whales some reckon the unicorn, as they commonly call him, from a long small horn that grows out of his snout; but his right name is nar-whale. It is a pretty large fish, eighteen or twenty feet long, and yields good fat: his skin is black and smooth without hair; he has one fin on each side, at the beginning of his belly: his head is pointed, and out of his snout on the left side proceeds the horn, which is round, turned, with a sharp taper point; the greatest length of it is fourteen or fifteen feet, and thick as your arm. The root of it goes very deep into the head, to strengthen it for supporting so heavy a burthen. The horn is of a fine, white, and compact matter, wherefore it weighs much: the third part of it, beginning from the root, is commonly hollow; and there are some very solid at the root, and above it grows more and more hollow. On the right side of the head there lies another shorter horn hidden, which does not grow out of the skin, and it cannot be conceived for what end the All-wise Creator has ordained it: he has, like other whales, two pipes or spouts which{78} terminate in one, through which he breathes and fetches air, when he comes up out of the sea with his head. Here I must observe to you, that when the whale comes up to fetch air, it is not water he throws out at the spouts, as the common notion runs; but his breath, which resembles water forced out of a great spout. As for the rest of the unicorn or nar-whale’s body, it is perfectly of the same shape as that of other whales.

Concerning this animal’s horn, which has given occasion to so many disputes, whether it be a horn properly so called, or a tooth, my reader must allow me a little digression, to make these gentlemen disputants aware of their mistake, who pretend it to be a tooth and not a horn, being placed on one side of the snout, and not on the top of the forehead, where other animals wear their horns. (See Wormius’s Museum, l. iii. ch. 14.) But it appears clearly to all beholders, that it neither has the shape of a tooth, such as other sea animals are endowed with, nor has its root in the jaws, the ordinary place of teeth, but grows out of the snout. And{79} besides, the absurdity is much greater to hold and maintain, that animals wear teeth on the snout or head, like horns: or dare anybody deny, that the whale’s spouts are his nostrils, through which he fetches breath, because they are on the top of his head; or question, that the clap-mysses’ (a large kind of seal) eyes are such, because they are placed in the hindermost part of the head? Ought we not rather to think, that an All-wise Creator has placed this horn horizontally, to the end that it may not be of any hinderance to the course and swimming of this animal in the water, which would happen if it rose vertically? Furthermore, this horn serves many other ends, as to stir up his food from the bottom of the sea, as he is said to feed upon small sea-weeds, and likewise therewith to bore holes in the ice, in order to fetch fresh air. Th............