I 9 8 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



Shetland Cos., in Ronas Voe ; the Olna Co., in Olna Firth ; 

 and lastly, the Buneveneader Co., at Buneveneader on the 

 west side of the Island of Harris. It is seldom necessary for 

 our present purposes to distinguish between the catches of 

 the several stations, and I have dealt for the most part 

 with their records as a whole. 



The following preliminary table shows the total number 

 of whales -landed at all the stations between the years 1908 

 and 1914: 



2409 



Name. Sex. 190S. 1909. 1910. 1911. 1912. 1913. 1914. 



Common Finner,\ M. 181 194 197' 159 136 136 185 



B. musculus, L. ./ F. 198 238 184 185 156 123 137 



Wffl M ' I27 ^ 97 6 7 61 74 140 7i4J I29I 



Less . j F - I<J 5 76 93 63 47 85 108 577 j 9 



Blue Whale, B. Sid-\ M. 9 18 9 3 9 2 7 57\ Ioq 



baldi, Gray . ./ F. 8 15 12 2 3 ... 12 52/ 



Nordcaper, Bahtna\ M. 12 9 5 ... 4 ... 4 34^ g- 



biscayensis, auctt. ./ F. 7 12 4 ... 7 I 1 33/ 



Sperm Whale, Pky-} ' __ \ 



seter macrocepha- V u ' ,,. ' ..^ !- 42 



/us, L. . . J b W> {-J 1 } 



Humpback Whale.1 M 8 ,.^ 



j4W /^4f" i S 2 9 si 31 - 8 



*w*, Rud. J r * J 3 2 x X J 



Bottlenose Whale,! , /T fi ) 



tratum, Mull. J p " X 03 14 J 

 Total .{M ; 



331 384 318 250 220 224 337 2064 

 319 346 296 253 220 212 259 1905 



Grand Total . 650 730 614 503 440 434 596 3969 



Let us take the less plentiful species first, beginning with 

 the Nordcaper, and leave the more copious records of the 

 " Finner " and Sei whales to the last. 



I. The Sarde or Nordcaper (Balcena biscayensis, auctt.). 



This whale has a long and curious history, on which we 

 can only touch in briefest outline. It is the whale of the old 

 Basque fishery, which flourished in the Middle Ages and on 

 towards the end of the sixteenth century, when (as Rondelet 

 and Ambroise Pare tell us) men watched for its coming from 

 "vigias" or outlook-towers, as in all ages they have done 

 for pilchard and tunny ; and the harpooners went out in 

 their fleets of little boats, and the people feasted on the 



i-i 



