fin-back

Updated: June 5, 2025

From July to November two 'schools' of killers may be seen every day, either cruising to and fro across the entrance of the bay, or engaged in a Titanic combat with a whale a 'right' whale, a 'humpback, or the long, swift 'fin-back. Never have they been known to tackle the great sperm-whale, except when one of those mighty creatures has been wounded by his human enemies.

Louis Becke - Rídan The Devil And Other Stories: 1899

While crossing, I saw numerous whales belonging to the three kinds peculiar to the southern seas; the whale, or the English "right whale," which has no dorsal fin; the "humpback," with reeved chest and large, whitish fins, which, in spite of its name, do not form wings; and the fin-back, of a yellowish brown, the liveliest of all the cetacea.

Jules Verne - Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

What have the deep-sea fisheries of the Grand Banks to do with a Greater Britain Overseas? You would not ask that question if you could see the sealing fleets set out in spring; or the whaling crews drive after a great fin-back up north of Tilt Cove; or the schooners go out with their dories in tow for the Grand Banks fisheries.

Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut - The Canadian Commonwealth

A look of blank amazement appeared on the face of the captain, but it was quickly succeeded by the blackness of rage. He was about to swear, but restrained himself. "Engaged to you?" he shouted, forgetting entirely the people in the street; "I'd rather be engaged to a fin-back shark!" The smile now left her face. "Oh, thank you very much," she said.

Frank Richard Stockton - The Captain's Toll-Gate

In the length he attains, and in his baleen, the Fin-back resembles the right whale, but is of a less portly girth, and a lighter colour, approaching to olive. His great lips present a cable-like aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds of large wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from which he derives his name, is often a conspicuous object.

Herman Melville - Moby Dick, or, the whale

The boats I saw in the morning belonged to her, and had been out chasing what they thought to be a whale, but which proved to be only a fin-back, a species which was not thought to repay the trouble of trying out.

Edward John Eyre - Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 02