The Portland daily press., 1892-07-30
A BABY WHALE.
Mr.. John Griffin of South Portland,
Catches One Off the Cape After a Hard
Struggle-The Old Mother-Whale Was
Not Around, or She Would Have Made
1t Hot for Griffin.

NOO AIOUAu, VI SIlo tOu1U Aato nAeA>AS
1t Hot for Griffin.
Thursday night Mr.. John Griffin OF
South Portland, went out in his hamp-
ton boat for a mackerel dragging trip.
He put out to sea until he was about 16
miles off Cape Elizabeth Two Lights.
There he began setting his nets for mack
erel. Mr.. Griffin's fishing operations
proceeded as such operations are won't to
proceed until a little after noon, when
he became aware that his nets were
greatly agitated by some large denizen
of the deep. Memories of the shark
that catawumpused about Mr.. Jordan's
boat SO carelessly few weeks ago are
still vivid in the minds of Cape Elizabeth
fishermen, and Mr.. Griffin approached
the scene of the disturbance carefully.
His accommodating did not reveal much.
There was a great thrashing about in the
water, and a tremendous agitation of the
net. Some big fish was surely caught;
and it was now only a question whether
Griffin should get the fish or the fish
should get away with the net. A South
Portland fisherman clings to his net as
tenaciously as the Spartan soldier did to
his shield. Mr.. Griffin determined that
no fish that swan the ocean should
have that net. Then began highly in
teresting struggle, so severe that Mr..
Griffin would not pretend to give a de-
tailed account of it. The big fish
thrashed and the fisherman hung to the
net with all his might.
The battle was sharp; but it was all
against the big fish. Its struggles grad
ually grew less violent, and finally Mr..
Griffin hauled up-not shark or a
sword fish, but a
Black, Round, Plump, Baby Whale
with white belly.
Mr.. Griffin's heart must have leaped
into his throat when he saw his prize. 1t
isn't often that a Caseo Bay fisherman
gets whale-least Of all, a baby whale.
1t has been the ambition of Capt. Ben
Wizards life to get whale; and old res
idents remember the fracas in the har-
Dor many years ago when Capt. Willard
pursued the whale that crused up the
harbor. That whale passed up through
both the railroad bridges, and came back
again. Capt. Willard got out a bomb
gun and hit i,im, but he did not get
him.
When Mr.. Griffin got his prize into the
boat, he found it was about three feet
long, with a smooth, hard skin, dark
colored except on the belly, which was
white. The back fin was five inches
high and seven inches long. The two
throat fins were each about four inches
wide and five long. The tail was in two
prongs, which had spread of about nine
inches.
The young whale suclxles like a calf:
and Mr.. Griffin prize does not seem large
enough to have been weaned. But if the
baby wasn't weaned, where was the
mother, that she didn't raise Cain around
John Grifin's ears? The poor baby
seems to have been an orphan, and last
evening a man who knows considerable
about whales, suggested that the mother
whale might have been killed recently
by Provincetown whale hunter.
IfMr. Griffin could have kept his prize
alive it would have been worth consider
able; but the poor little thing was SO ex-
hausted and frightened that it died be-
fore Mr.. Griffin reached South Port
land.
Late yesterday afternoon, the infantile
form was laid out in a building at South
Portland, and was viewed by many at
the small cost of five cents each. The
whale will 60 to Austin 6 Stones
of Boston, and be stuffed.