ON THE WHALE FISHERY FROM SCOTLAND 81 



leaving Dundee in possession of the field. Dundee sent out 

 its largest fleet in 1885--! 6 vessels ; in the past season of 

 1903 she was represented by 5 vessels only, one of which was 

 wrecked. Mr. Robert Kinnes of Dundee tells me that 

 between the years 1814 and 1823 12,907 whales were 

 killed in Greenland and Davis Strait by British vessels ; 

 between 1824 and 1833, 9,532 were killed; and between 

 1 834 and 1843 only 1221. The numbers gradually decreased 

 till the introduction of steam. In the ten years ending 

 1902 only 172 whales were killed, 21 of which were 

 obtained in Greenland, which once favoured locality has now 

 been deserted. 



The great Bal&na inysticetus has been represented as 

 being circumpolar in its distribution ; but that can hardly be 

 said to be the case, at least in the present day. We have 

 seen how scarce it has become in the seas to the east of 

 Greenland. I cannot find that it passed east of Spitzbergen, 

 and it was apparently not met with between io c and 170 E. 

 longitude, where, at Cape Schelagskoi, we come in contact 

 with the bowhead of the American whalers. On the other 

 side Bering Strait these whales do not appear to penetrate 

 much farther east than Cape Bathurst, and it seems highly 

 improbable that there is any inter-communication between 

 those at that point and the whales in Baffin Bay. On the 

 other hand, the whales on the east side of Davis Strait do 

 not descend so far south as Cape Farewell, nor are those 

 in the Greenland Sea known to pass westward round that 

 Cape. It seems therefore that, although their range as a 

 species is undoubtedly extensive longitudinally, the localities 

 they inhabit are greatly restricted, each being frequented by 

 a local race differing from the others in some slight degree, 

 only of racial value, although they may possibly be species 

 in the making. I have elsewhere 1 gone at length into the 

 distribution of this interesting animal and given my reasons 

 for arriving at the conclusions above stated, my belief being 

 that actual extermination is taking place within the fixed 

 limits which each race has always inhabited, and that no 

 change of habitat can have or has taken place in the past. 



1 'On the Migration of the Right Whale,' "Natural Science," vol. xii. pp. 

 397-414. 



50 c 



