It seems to be the opinion of most writers on the subject of the whale-fishery, that the Biscayans were the first who succeeded in the capture of the whale. This opinion, though perhaps not correct, deserves to be mentioned in the outset of an investigation into the probable origin of this employment. A species of whale, probably the _Balæna rostrata_, was a frequent visitor to the shores of France and Spain. In pursuit of herrings and other small fishes, these whales would produce a serious destruction among the nets of the fishermen of Biscay and Gascony. Concern for the preservation of their nets, which probably constituted the whole of their property, would naturally suggest the necessity of driving these intruding monsters from their coasts. With this view, arrows and spears, and subsequently gunpowder, would be resorted to. Finding the whales timid and inoffensive, the fishers would be induced to approach some individual of the species, and even to dart their spears into its body. Afterwards they might conceive the possibility of entangling some of the species, by means of a cord attached to a barbed arrow or spear. One of these animals being captured, and its value ascertained, the prospect of emolument would be sufficient to establish a fishery of the cetaceous tribe, and lead to all the beneficial effects which have resulted in modern times. Those authorities, indeed, may be considered as unquestionable, which inform us that the Basques and Biscayans, so early as the year 1575, exposed themselves to the perils of a distant navigation, with a view to measure their strength with the whales, in the midst of an element constituting the natural habitation of these enormous animals; that the English, in 1594, fitted an expedition for Cape Breton, intended for the fishery of the whale and the walrus, (sea-horse,) pursued the walrus-fishing in succeeding years in high northern latitudes, and, in 1611, first attacked the whale near the shores of Spitzbergen; and that the Hollanders, and subsequently other nations of Europe, participated in the risk and advantages of these northern expeditions. Some researches, however, on the origin of this fishery, carried on in the northern seas, will be sufficient to rectify the error of these conclusions, by proving that the whale-fishery by Europeans may be traced as far back at least as the ninth century.