WHALES LANDED AT SCOTTLSU WHALING STATIONS 5 



our whalers, as is the Bottlenose. It is a scarce species on 

 our coasts, so far as we know, and at least during the 

 whaling-season. 



Of our thirty-one specimens, twenty-three were males, a 

 proportion of about 74 per cent. The males ranged in size 

 from 27 to 51 feet long, the females from 30 to 50 feet. The 

 median size of the former was 41 feet, of the latter 42^ feet; 

 the arithmetical means were 41-4 and 41-1 feet in other 

 words there was no evidence of inequality of size in the two 

 sexes. The girth varied from 16 feet in a 35-feet whale to 

 T,8 feet in a 41 -feet whale : i.e. from 44 to 93 per cent, of the 

 length. The median value was 56 per cent, a very high 

 value, but not more, in fact rather less, than we might expect 

 from the general form and appearance of the animal. 



We have nothing particular to say about the region of 

 capture (Fig. 7) ; about two-thirds of the" specimens were got 

 to the north of Shetland and Rona, the rest on the St Kilda 

 grounds. The dates of capture are shown in the following 

 table : 



Tota/ catch of Humpbacks, 1908- 19 14. 



MALES. 



FEMALES. 



1908. 1909. 1910. 1911. 1912. 1913. 1914. 1908. I;i09. 1910. 1911. 1912. 1913. 1914. Total. 



I I 

 2 



... 15 

 II 



2 



It will be seen that July was the chief month of capture, 

 and that twenty-six out of the whole thirty-one were got in 

 July and August. Twenty-two were got in the years 1909 

 and 1910; none at all in 191 2 ; and only one or two in 1908, 

 191 3, and 1914. In Finmark this whale occurs early in the 

 season. Out of 175 caught in a certain year, according to 

 Hjort, 104 were got before the ist of June; indeed, its 

 capture in the north of Norway begins as early as February. 

 In July it is found far north, in the neighbourhood of Bear 

 Island. 



