Ahab tells the crew that the White Whale can be told because he has an unusual spout, a deformed jaw, three punctures in his right fluke and several harpoons embedded in his side from unsuccessful hunts.

When he fled before "exalting pursuers", giving every symptom of alarm, he would suddenly turn round and stave their boats to splinters or drive them back to their ship.

One was the sinking of the Nantucket whaler Essex in 1820, after a large sperm whale rammed her 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the western coast of South America.

One of his battles with a whaler served as subject for an article by explorer Jeremiah N. Reynolds in the May 1839 issue of The Knickerbocker or New-York Monthly Magazine.

[8] Melville was familiar with the article, which described: This renowned monster, who had come off victorious in a hundred fights with his pursuers, was an old bull whale, of prodigious size and strength.