The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1901-06-27
SOME NEW JERSEY WHALES.
mans Net by One Making
His Toilet.


.Down on the Jersey coast, where
, spent the summer last year." said
. landsman, relates the New York
Sun, Il met n fisherman who told me
q story about a whale-a hunchback
whale. This fisherman had a pound
net planted of the beach. The net
was many hundred feet long and cost
hundreds, don't know but thousands,
Of dollars. One day after he had got
the net set the fisherman saw . little
! farther off shore humpback whale,
sort OF idling around in the water.
but gradually working inshore. 1t
was not unusual to see whales of the
coast, and the fisherman wasn't very
particularly struck by this whale,
even when he saw that he was edg-
ing in toward the land and toward
his pound net. because he expected
really every minute to see him sheer
of and go to sea again.
THE idea of the whales troubling his
pound net never occurred to him, but
the first thing he knew the whale was
right alongside of it. The next min
ute the fisherman saw the whale rub
bing. his back and sides against it,
rubbing the barnacles of his back on
his pound net!
THE hard, tarred rope, tied up in
diamond meshes, was just the thing
for this, or would have been if the
net and the stakes had been a little
stronger; but apparently it pleased
the whale greatly as it was. He
rubbed along it slowly, the barnacles
catching in the angles of the meshes
and being yanked off, or else bunch
of them, or the surge of the whale.
or both together, tearing the net in
some places, the whale crowding in
harder all the time and being espe-
cially tickled when he rubbed against
a stake. but making the stake bend
and crack. And still a-crowding
harder and harder, rubbing and scrub
bing along, the wnale finally pushed
the whole blessed pound net clean
over and wrecked and half destroyed
it. Then he up helm and put to sea.
"Well, now, you know, ] was in
clined to doubt this story; just lit
tie, anyhow; but another fisherman
I saw down there said. while this
happened before he came, he didn't
question that it was the simple truth.
He said he'd seen whales rub and roll
on a sandy beach to rub barnacles off,
and he didn't see why whale should
mt use a pound net for that If it
found one handy. He said whales
often got great numbers of barnacles
on them, not on the under part OF
the body, but on the sides or back.
and that the barnacles grew and
thrived there just as they would. for
instance, on a turtle, or as they do in
enormous numbers on ships. These
barnacles may not actually irritate
the whale, but they impede its prog
ress just as they would a ships. and
make the whale want to get rid OF
them.
"The whale can't very well rub the
barnacles off on the bottom, because
It would be likely to find only soft
ooze and mud, and that's about what
he'd find inshore, too, at the mouth
OF rivers and such places; but if he
strikes a sandy beach, there he'll rub
himself. And he might clean himself
on a rocky coast; but if he did, It
wouldn't be on the rocks, but on some
little beach where there was n place
for it, made by the weathering OF the
rocks and grinding up Of the frag-
ments by the sea. The whale, this
man said, certainly does come into
such places to rub the barnacles off;
and he thought the pound net story
was no fish story, but just plain
statement Of the facts.
81 met down there another fisher
man still who told me about a hump
back whale he once met off Sandy
Hook, when he was going into New
York on fishing smack. This whale
was lying on top OF the water, dead,
to all appearances; and from what
showed of it above the water it ap-
peared to be about 45 feet long. They
headed the smack up for it. and had
got within about 20 feet of it, when
one of the crew dropped sweep on
the smack's deck. 1t struck the deck
with n loud bang, and
"Swish-slap! went the whales tail
as he threw 1t up and then slammed
it down on the water; and, zoo-op!
down and away he went in grand
crush and slather Of foam and waves
They saw him again about a quarter
of mile off, and then they didn't see
him again at all.
THE whale, you see, had just been
lying there on the water asleep. And
they We're glad the man dropped the
oar as he did and walked him, be.
cause the smack was small sloop
,,J +I,o ,,b 10 would have m oIa IL