Note 22 — MYSTACOCETI (WHALEBONE WHALES.)
Reading edition
Blackstone mentions a curious old feudal law, to the effect “that on the taking of a Whale on the coasts, which is a royal fish, it shall be divided between the king and queen; the head only being the king’s property, and the tail of it the queen’s. ‘De Sturgione observetur, quod rex illum habebit integrum: de balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam.’ The reason of this whimsical division, as assigned by our ancient records, was, to furnish the Queen’s wardrobe with whalebone”!—Blackstone’s ‘Commentaries,’ 1783 edit., vol. i., p. 223.