Of These Monsters There Are Four Sorts; The First, Which Is Most
Choice And Rich, Is The Sperma Caeti Whale, From Which The Sperma Caeti
Is Taken.
These are rich Prizes; but I never heard but of one found
on this Coast, which was near Currituck-Inlet.
The other sorts are of a prodigious Bigness. Of these the Bone and Oil
is made; the Oil being the Blubber, or oily Flesh, or Fat of that Fish boil'd.
These differ not only in Colour, some being pied, others not,
but very much in shape, one being call'd a Bottle-Nosed Whale,
the other a Shovel-Nose, which is as different as a Salmon from a Sturgeon.
These Fish seldom come ashoar with their Tongues in their Heads,
the Thrasher (which is the Whale's mortal Enemy, wheresoever he meets him)
eating that out of his Head, as soon as he and the Sword-Fish have kill'd him.
For when the Whale-catchers (in other Parts) kill any of these Fish,
they eat the Tongue, and esteem it an excellent Dish.
There is another sort of these Whales, or great Fish,
though not common. I never knew of above one of that sort,
found on the Coast of North Carolina, and he was contrary, in Shape,
to all others ever found before him; being sixty Foot in Length,
and not above three or four Foot Diameter. Some Indians in America
will go out to Sea, and get upon a Whales Back, and peg or plug up his Spouts,
and so kill him.
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