THE BOTTLENOSE WHALE AND HOW IT IS HUNTED
There is a strange and interesting family of small-toothed whales known
as the ziphioids, which owes its commercial importance to a single
species, the bottlenose. This whale seldom reaches a greater length than
thirty feet, and takes its name from the bottle-like snout or beak
which, at the extreme tip of the lower jaw, bears two small pointed
teeth almost concealed in the gum.
These whales were never extensively hunted until 1882, when Captain
David Gray went north in the schooner _Eclipse_ and returned with a
cargo of oil which demonstrated the profits of the venture. The next
year he got two hundred bottlenoses and it was not long before the
Norwegians began operations on a large scale. In 1891, from Norway
alone, seventy ships sailed for bottlenoses and killed a total of three
thousand animals. In later years the business declined because of the
scarcity of whales and the difficulties and dangers of the hunt, for in
no branch of modern whaling is there such a large percentage of fatal
accidents.
The bottlenose ships are small schooners of thirty to fifty tons,
carrying several small boats and usually armed with six guns fore and
aft; in addition, each boat has a gun mounted on the very bow. The guns
are much smaller than those of the steam whalers and shoot harpoons only
three feet long, with several strong barbs but without explosive points.
Each iron carries with it twenty or thirty fathoms of “forerunner,”
which leads to the main five-hundred-fathom line coiled in a tub at the
stern of the small boat. As soon as a whale has been struck, a turn of
the rope is thrown about a small post called the “puller,” to check the
speed of the running line. The small boats carry four sailors each—two
at the oars, one to steer, and one at the gun.
The work in the bitter cold and freezing water, to say nothing of the
ever-present possibility of having one’s head, arm, or leg shorn clean
off by the whizzing rope, robs bottlenose hunting of its attractiveness,
and it is difficult, at present, to find competent men who will ship
even for a short cruise. Therefore these whales have been but little
studied and there is much to learn about their habits and family life.
Most of our present knowledge is due to the observations of Captain
David Gray and Mr. Axel Ohlin, who in 1891 spent two years on a
bottlenose vessel. According to Mr. Ohlin, when a herd of whales is
sighted, if it will not come within range of the ship, one or two boats
are launched which slip quietly toward the animals. Generally the whales
spout several times at intervals of thirty or forty seconds and then
sound, to remain below sometimes for an hour or more. The boats lie to
where the school has disappeared and when the whales again rise to the
surface are quietly swung about until the gunner gets a fair shot.
If the harpoon misses, which often happens in a choppy sea, the gun is
again loaded and the line hauled in with the greatest haste. Instead of
being frightened by the report, the whale’s curiosity is usually
aroused, and an opportunity for a second shot is soon given.
When a bottlenose has been hit, the harpooner immediately twists the
line several times around the puller, the steersman makes sure that the
rope is clear, and one of the oarsmen hoists a flag to signal the other
boats or the ship to stand by in case of accident.
The whale usually dives straight downward at tremendous speed and has
been known to take out five hundred fathoms of line in two minutes. At
such times, no matter how carefully the harpoon rope may have been
coiled in the stern, there is great danger that it may run foul or get
entangled. If a knot is formed, the line must be cut instantly or the
boat will be dragged under water. Not infrequently the line gets looped
about the body of one of the sailors and the man is either killed or
loses an arm or leg.
When the bottlenose reappears after the first rush, usually he is almost
exhausted and lies quietly at the surface spouting frequently. A second
boat then tries to get near enough for a shot or to thrust a hand lance
into the whale’s lungs.
Like all cetaceans, just before the bottlenose dies it goes into the
death flurry and plunges back and forth lashing the water into foam or
throwing its body into the air. It is well to keep at a safe distance
during the flurry or a stove boat will result.
When the whale has been killed, the freezing line is hauled in and the
animal towed to the vessel to be cut in. The blubber is stripped off as
the body rolls over, is sliced into thin sections, and thrown into iron
cisterns in the ship’s hold; the carcass is then left to sink.
A full-grown male bottlenose will yield about two tons of oil and two
hundredweight of spermaceti, which is contained in the “forehead” in the
same relative position as the “case” of the sperm whale. The great
masses of fat at the bases of the jawbones are also of considerable
value. An analysis of the bottlenose oil and spermaceti shows it to be
as fine in quality as that of the sperm, and the whales yield a large
amount considering their small size.
The tremendous strength and endurance of the bottlenose are proverbial
and I doubt if many of the extraordinary tales which one hears in the
cabins of the shore whaling vessels are greatly exaggerated. It seems
certain that this whale can, and does, remain under water longer than
any other large cetacean, and its strength and endurance in proportion
to its size are probably surpassed only by the killer (_Orca orca_).
Bottlenose whales are said to throw their entire bodies into the air,
their powerful flukes giving such tremendous power to the leap that they
take the water again headfirst instead of falling back helplessly on
their sides.
The animals are gregarious and usually travel in herds of five to ten
individuals; more than ten are rare, but many different schools may be
in sight at the same time, separated from each other by only a short
distance. The old bulls sometimes lead a solitary life, but herds of
young bulls, cows, and calves, led by a bull, are often seen.
The differences of age and sex can easily be determined both by the
color and the shape of the head. The young vary from black to light
brown in the older individuals and females, and old bulls are often
almost yellow, with much white about the head and neck.
The mating period appears to be in April or May and the period of
gestation about twelve months, although there is little definite
information concerning breeding habits. Like all cetaceans, the young
are very large at birth, and Captain Gray writes that from a female
bottlenose twenty-nine feet long he removed a fœtus ten feet in length
by five feet six inches in circumference. A fœtus of slightly larger
size has also been recorded by Guldberg.
The hearing of the bottlenose is very acute and a school of whales will
detect the sound of a ship’s propeller at a long distance, but instead
of being frightened, the animals often surround the ship or boats and
exhibit the greatest curiosity; nor will they leave until they have
thoroughly examined the strange object.
A herd will never leave a wounded comrade while it is still alive, but
swim away as soon as it is dead. The hunters often take advantage of
this loyalty, after they are fast to a bottlenose, by harpooning a
second before the first is killed. The whales crowd about the wounded
ones, coming in the most mysterious manner from all parts of the
compass, and sometimes ten or fifteen can be taken before the school is
lost.
The bottlenose appears to feed exclusively upon a bluish-white
cuttlefish about six inches long, for nothing else has been taken from
their stomachs as far as I have been able to learn. Like the orca and
sperm whale, when a bottlenose is killed it almost always ejects large
quantities of cuttlefish from its mouth. Judging by the length of time
the animals remain under water and their heavy spouts when reappearing,
they must have to go to a great depth to find their food. The two minute
teeth at the tip of the lower jaw can be of no assistance whatever in
feeding and will undoubtedly eventually disappear altogether.
The bottlenose is common in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, and
although rare on the Finmark coast are numerous about Spitzbergen,
Iceland, Nova Zembla, East and West Greenland, Davis Straits, and
Labrador. Near the Faroe Islands and Iceland they have been most
relentlessly persecuted and hundreds of whales are taken annually.
Specimens have never been recorded from the Pacific, but Captains H. G.
Melsom and Fred Olsen assured me that they had seen bottlenoses along
the northern coast of Japan not far from Aikawa. Whalemen of their
experience who have hunted the animals in the Atlantic could hardly be
mistaken, and I feel certain that before long specimens will be taken in
Pacific waters.
Whether or not they will prove to be specifically identical with the
Atlantic bottlenose it is, of course, impossible to say. So far as
present information extends there appears to be but a single species,
the _Hyperoödon rostratum_, described by Müller in 1776. Because of the
great changes which age and sex produce in color and in the shape of the
head, numerous names have been given to individuals which have all
proved to be specifically identical with the common form, _H.
rostratum_.
Although the bottlenose is the only commercially important member of the
family Ziphiidæ, and is consequently the best known, the other species
of this strange group are not less interesting. All the ziphioids are
characterized by the tail which has no notch in the center and by the
one or two pairs of teeth in the lower jaw, near or at the end, which
sometimes develop in a most unusual way.
In one species, Layard’s whale (_Mesoplodon layardi_), the two flat,
strap-like teeth in the lower jaw grow upward to a height of eight or
ten inches and sometimes bend over the long pointed snout, preventing
the animal from opening its mouth more than an inch or two. How the
whale feeds when the jaws are thus locked is a mystery.
In one species, _Mesoplodon grayi_, besides the pair of functional teeth
near the end of the lower jaw, a row of small teeth are present on
either side, entirely embedded in the gum of the upper jaw. These never
appear on the surface, even in the oldest animals, and are similar to
the teeth concealed in the upper jaw of the sperm whale. In ancient
times they were undoubtedly all well developed, but as the food of the
whales changed, and the teeth became of less and less importance, they
gradually began to disappear.
The front portion of the skull of all the ziphioid whales is produced in
the form of a long cylinder of bone which, although open in the middle
in young specimens, gradually fills up by ossification of the central
cartilage and eventually becomes of almost flinty hardness.
Because of the extreme solidity of this portion of the skull it
fossilizes very perfectly. When digging for the fortifications about the
city of Antwerp hundreds of these bones and teeth were found, and many
have been taken from the “Red Crag” deposits in England.
Ziphioid whales are evidently an ancient group which was once very
widely distributed. They are found today in the greatest numbers in the
seas about New Zealand and Australia, but single specimens are
continually appearing unexpectedly in almost every part of the world.
Recently a specimen was washed ashore on the coast of New Jersey and the
skeleton sent to me for identification. I was surprised to find that it
represented a species, _Mesoplodon densirostris_, which before had been
recorded only near New Zealand.
When in Japan in 1910 I saw a photograph of a whale which was said to
occur at certain times of the year only in Tokyo Bay, and when a
skeleton was finally secured for the American Museum of Natural History,
the whale was found to represent an exceedingly rare species, _Berardius
bairdi_, which had been taken only in Alaskan waters.
Thus, it is evident that at the present time we know almost nothing
about the distribution of these strange whales. Every year or two new
species are being discovered and there is evidence to show that the
family, as it now exists, is the last survivor of a once numerous group.