Beluga whale

“ The light sail was set, and soon we were bounding away in the direction of Mille Vaches, Captain Sam at the oar that constituted the helm, and Captain Sol in the bow, with harpoon at hand, ready for the appearance of game.
The white whale, or Beluga, is extremely common at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and is found a considerable distance up the river beyond Tadousac. The oil is in constant demand for delicate machinery, and Beluga leather, made from the tanned hide, is manufactured into a great variety of articles of necessity and luxury. ”

“ The Beluga gives us the best shoe-strings in the world. You can lace your shoes with a Beluga lace for two years and be sure it will not break the morning you are in an especial hurry to catch an inter-Reuben train.
An interest attaches to living whales which outweighs the fascination with which we study their dead parts. Each species of the whale propagates with one of its own species only. The fidelity of whales to each other exceeds the constancy of birds. ”

“ The White Whale, or Beluga, is included among the dolphins. The body is white, tinged with yellow, or{411} rose-colour, and its proportions are more agreeable than those of most of the cetacea. It measures from twelve to eighteen feet in length. White Whales are gregarious, assembling in flocks or herds, and playing about with rapid and graceful movements. The female has two young ones at a time, over which she watches with the greatest apparent affection. They follow all her movements, and do not quit her till they are nearly full grown. ”

“ Whale-blubber tastes like raw bacon and it cannot very easily be cooked, as it would liquify too soon. It is a good deal better than seal-oil, which to a southern palate is sweet, mawkish, and sickly. Seal-oil tastes as lamp-oil smells. But you can approach without a qualm boiled beluga-skin, which is the skin of the white whale. In its soft and gelatinous form it ranks among northern delicacies with beaver-tail and moose-nose, being exceedingly tasty and ever so much more palatable than pigs-feet. ”

“ The Killer is one of the larger members of the whale family, which the natives prefer not to attack, as it can be very vicious at times. Even much further south than Alaska, the creature has the reputation among the shore whalemen, of chasing the boats to the shore occasionally and has had many victims. Its chief food is the seal and beluga, while its sly disposition enables it also to capture the water birds. Placing itself just beneath the surface, with open jaws, it emits a substance that attracts the birds who settle down on the waves and begin feeding ”

“ The white whale or beluga, of equal size with the narwhal, on the other hand, occurs in large shoals on the coasts of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya, especially near the mouths of fresh-water streams. These animals were formerly captured, but [pg 166] not with any great success, by means of a peculiar sort of harpoon, called by the hunters "skottel." ”

“ Today, Eskimos use harpoon guns and sturdy wooden whale boats. However, the entire village still turns out to drag a whale ashore. Each village kills only what it requires for food and oil through the long arctic winter. They hunt the arctic bowhead whale, although the smaller white whale (beluga) is also hunted. The bowhead has never recovered from commercial whaling, even though it has been protected for years by the International Whaling Commission. The regulations however, do not apply to the aborigines, but their needs should not have prevented the whales from becoming plentiful again. ”

“ However, these families include such unique forms as the killer whale, narwhal, white whale (or beluga as it is known to the Eskimos) , and the pilot or black whale. Generally one associates cetaceans with the ocean, so it may come as a surprise to find that four dolphin species live in such major rivers as the Amazon, La Plata, Ganges, and the Yangtze.
In dolphins, the mouth protrudes beyond the head as a beak or snout, and in porpoises, the front of the head is blunt or gently rounded. It is impossible to avoid confusion if one uses common names to separate the various whales. ”

“ Narwhals have small rounded heads and a small mouth. Like the other medium-sized whale in the same region, the beluga or white whale, the narwhal has no dorsal fin. Instead, it has a series of bumps, approximately 2 inches (5.1 cm) high along the midline of the back in the half nearest the tail. The ridge created by these bumps may be readily seen on a swimming animal.
The basic coloration of the species changes slightly with age. Young animals are uniformly dark bluish gray on the back but rapidly begin to develop the numerous leopardlike spots on the back and sides characteristic of adults. ”

“ They have a great abundance of water-fowl, such as geese, ducks, and the small waders, and they occasionally kill a beluga, or white grampus, and at still more rare intervals they find a stranded whale, which is set upon and eaten. They save carefully all the oil which comes from marine mammals; they treasure it up in seal-skin bags that are placed high up above the reach of dogs and foxes on a frame scaffold which adjoins every hut. ”

“ The genus Delphinapterus, the Beluga or White Whale, consists of but a single species, though as usual more than one name has been given to supposed different species. It is characterised as a genus by the following assemblage of structural features:—It has only eight to ten teeth occupying the anterior part of the jaws only. All the cervical vertebrae are free and unjoined. ”

“ The northern species (Hyperoodon rostratum) has often been recorded upon our own coasts; the first record of the stranding of this Whale was in the year 1717. In that year an example was found at Maldon, in Essex. Like the Beluga, Hyperoodon rostratum gets lighter in colour with advancing years. The young are black; the old animals pale brown with some white about them. The under surface, however, is always greyish white. The length of this Whale reaches to at any rate 30 feet. But John Hunter had a specimen which he believed to be 40 feet in length. ”

“ His jets are erect, full, and black like soot; so that from so abounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there must be a brave supper cooking in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are pecking at the small crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer. ”

“ These brutes have been known to attack a white-painted herring boat, mistaking it for a beluga; and it is stated that occasionally they will boldly lay siege to whales killed by the whalers, almost dragging them perforce under water. Near some of the Pacific sealing grounds they continually swim about, and swoop off the unwary young; even the large male sea-lions hastily retreat ashore and give these monsters a wide berth. The walrus also, with his powerful tusks, cannot keep the killers at bay, especially if young morses are in the herd. ”

“ His eyes, too, set obliquely, enable him to command the sea at all points save dead ahead, and it is accordingly from this point that the fishermen approach him. But however stealthily they move, the opportunities for disappointment are many. Big as he is, the whale is not sluggish. In an instant he may sink bodily from sight; or, throwing his flukes high in air, "sound," to be seen no more; or, casting himself bodily on the boat, blot it out of existence ”

“ The log-books of whalers have for many years been carefully examined and compared by scientific men. These investigations have led to the discovery "that the tropical regions of the ocean are to the 'right' whale as a sea of fire, through which he cannot pass, and into which he never enters." It has also been ascertained that the same kind of whale which is found off the shores of Greenland, in Baffin's Bay, &c., is found in the North Pacific, and about Behring's Straits; and that the "right" whale of the southern hemisphere is a different animal from that of the northern. ”

“ Whichever way we cast an eye we see oil casks or whalebone, harpoons or lances, or some one or other of the various et ceteras belonging to the whaleman’s pursuit; in fact, the yield of the whale supports New Bedford, and is the nucleus around which clusters all the manufactures of the city; and its vitality as a community must ever depend upon the number of vessels it sends out in pursuit of the whale. ”

“ At that moment the cry came from forward, "There she blows!" the usual signal at sea for a whale in sight, and all eyes were turned to watch the gambols of a large whale and her calf, half a mile to windward. It will be remembered that these were once famous whaling latitudes, but this adventurous industry has now become almost a thing of the past in these regions. In the mean time the Leviathan and its giant baby were lashing the sea and sending up small mountains of spray, the calf occasionally leaping quite out of the water in its redundant sportiveness. ”

“ The sea-otter has been driven from this immediate neighborhood by too vigorous and indiscriminate pursuit, but the sea-lion, various water-fowls, and plenty of cod, halibut, and salmon still abound among these lonely islands of the North Pacific. Occasionally a dead whale is stranded on the shore, which is considered a cause for great rejoicing, every part of the animal being utilized by the natives. No matter how putrid the flesh may be, it is eagerly eaten by these people, both raw and cooked. ”

“ Whalers must process the whales quickly, for otherwise, at the elevated body temperature, decomposition proceeds most rapidly and ruins much of the meat. It is possible that the baleen-bearing whales do not cross the warm equatorial waters because they overheat. No one has yet determined whether the newborn young have a sufficient layer of fat to protect them from the cold water, and it has been suggested that whales calve in temperate waters to prevent the babies from being chilled. However, there are species like the narwhal and the white whale which calve in Arctic waters. ”

“ Ordinarily, in the summer time, the bowhead comes to the surface and [196] breathes every forty minutes or so. But now and then, for some cause or other, one will sulk, and the natives have watched them lying close in shore in shallow water for five days without seeing a movement or attempt to come to the surface to breathe. Such whales are denominated “sleepy heads,” and when killed are found to have a blubber that is watery instead of full of oil. The blubber of more than one whale is thrown overboard after being cut in, because it is deficient in oil. ”

“ After exhausting the products of one vicinity, for the time being, they move on, but return to the locality at a proper time, when nature has recuperated herself and furnished a fresh supply of vegetable growth and edible shell-fish. A stranded whale is a godsend to these savages, upon the putrid flesh of which they live and fatten until all has disappeared. In their primitive way they hunt this leviathan, but want of proper facilities renders them rarely successful. ”

“ Their food comprises almost everything that is endowed with life—kangaroos, snakes, iguanas, and grubs being their dainties; and if in the neighborhood where a bullock is killed, they greedily flock to the spot, secure the entrails, and devour them without cleansing. They are also very fond of the flesh of the whale; and if by accident one comes ashore on the coast, or they take one at either of the fisheries in the bay, they resort to the spot in great numbers and devour the meat, fresh or putrid, without cooking. The women back all the burdens, beside carrying the children ”

“ Yet with a magnificent courage which is only half appreciated by a landsman, the fearless New Bedford whalers attack these colossal animals with merely a 239slender hand lance. Is it to be wondered at that our New England ancestors in such a training school made a history of which every American may well be proud?
A female sperm whale at Aikawa, Japan. The head of the female is much more pointed than that of the male.
Although deep-sea whaling is practically ended, year after year two or three ships drop away from the New Bedford wharves bound for the Hatteras grounds for sperm whales. ”

“ They are very active and difficult to harpoon, yield comparatively little oil, and their baleen, or "whalebone," is almost worthless; consequently, they suffer much less than the right whales from the persecutions of the whalers. The finner, or great black fish, is feared by whalers in general. It is vicious, and can only be attacked by large boats in shallow water, as at the Bermudas, where the whale-boats are about 50 or 60 feet long, and 12 feet beam. The fish yields one barrel of oil for every foot in length beyond thirty. ”

“ Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times is combined with the element in which they swim, hence, a herring or a cod might live a century, and never once raise its head above the surface. But owing to his marked internal structure which gives him regular lungs, like a human being’s, the whale can only live by inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere. ”