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.