Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
WHALE HUNTING with GUN and CAMERA
A NATURALIST’S ACCOUNT OF THE MODERN SHORE WHALING INDUSTRY, OF WHALES AND THEIR HABITS, AND OF HUNTING EXPERIENCES IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE WORLD
PREFACE
In this book I have endeavored to tell of modernshore whaling as I have seen it during the past eightyears while collecting and studying cetaceans for theAmerican Museum of Natural History. This workcarried me twice around the world, as well as northwardon two expeditions to Alaska, and southward tothe tropic waters of Borneo and the Dutch East Indies.
I have also tried to give, in a readable way, someof the most interesting facts about whales and theirhabits, confining myself, however, to those specieswhich form the basis of the shore whaling industry,or are commercially important, and which have comeunder my personal observation.
In all of this work the camera has necessarily playeda large part, for it is only by means of photographsthat whales can be seen in future study as they appearalive or when freshly killed. It is hardly necessaryto say that the photographing has been intensely interesting,and to any one who is in search of real excitementI can heartily recommend camera huntingfor whales.
It should be understood that this book is in no sensea manual of the large Cetacea. I hope, however, atsome future time to write a volume which will treatof this wonderful mammalian order in a less casualviiiway, and thus satisfy a desire which has been everpresent in my mind since I began the study of whales.
Some portions of this book have been publishedas separate articles in the American Museum Journal,World’s Work, Metropolitan, Outing, NationalGeographic, and other magazines, but by far thegreater part of it is new.