It is perhaps most abundant about the Faroe Islands north of Scotland, where the natives take advantage of its follow-the-leader habit and drive the herds into narrow fjords to be slaughtered by the hundreds and used for oil and food. These blackfish hunts of the Faroes are famous and lend a welcome touch of romance and picturesqueness to the present-day whaling which contains so little of the old-time glamour. When a school of _grind_, as they are called by the Faroe men, is sighted, word is telephoned along the coast, and whether it is night or day, boats begin to assemble to surround the porpoises. The herd is slowly and quietly driven toward the mouth of the fjord which has been selected by the first boats on the scene—preferably a fjord with shallow water at the head—and as reinforcements arrive the men are arranged in definite formation by the director of the hunt. The progress of the herd is very slow at first, about a mile an hour, but when once well within the fjord itself the boat crews close in, begin to beat the water vigorously with their oars, and to throw stones among the most backward of the school. Perhaps the porpoises may suddenly turn and break for the open sea, and then follows a race by the outlying boats to cut them off. Instead of diving or rushing the boats which block their way, the guileless _grind_ turn about tumultuously and once more race up the fjord. When the school is thoroughly scared, they break away again and again with a mad dash, only to be turned back by the encircling boats, until they reach the shallow water at the end of the fjord and rush far up toward the shelving shore. As soon as they begin floundering about at the water’s edge,, a little crowd of fishermen who have been hiding behind the rocks, dash into the water and grasping the stranded whales by the fins plunge sharp knives into the necks of the struggling brutes. Meanwhile in slightly deeper water the boatmen are spearing the porpoises not already stranded. Everywhere there is an atmosphere of carnage; the air itself becomes infected with the odor of blood. In the fjord, now stained crimson, there is a confused mass of boats and blood-splashed men wading fearlessly among the floundering whales. Some of these make mad rushes for shore, scattering groups of men bending over the stranded _grind_; others in their last agonies dive on the muddy bottom and, half out of water, beat the air with their great tails. The hunt may last for hours, for some of the boats chase the stragglers even out to the open sea. [Illustration: A school of “blackfish” at Cape Cod. These animals often work their way into shallow water, where they are stranded by the receding tide. ] [Illustration: A Pacific blackfish (_Globicephalus scammoni_). This species has no white on the under parts. ]