204 



THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



seemed to indicate some grave discrepancy in the methods 

 of measurement ; but though a somewhat similar discrepancy 

 exists in the case of our Sperm-whale records, I do not find 

 it so in the more copious statistics of the Finner, Sei, and 

 Blue whales, and, moreover, there is a certain appearance of 

 order and regularity underlying the discrepancy. The 

 whole of the twenty-one Nordcapers landed in June 1909 

 have very low ratios of girth to length, viz. from 37 to 



W WL m 



Fig. I. The Catch of Nordcapers: 1908-1914. 



60 per cent., with an average ratio of about 45 per cent. ; 

 in other words they seem to have been conspicuously lanky 

 and lean. The whole of the eighteen landed in July 1908 were 

 conspicuously stout and fat, with ratios of from 61 to 100 

 per cent., and an average of 75 per cent, for the females and 

 82 per cent, for the males. And on the whole those 

 got in 1908 and 1914, according to the measurements, were 

 fat, and those got in 1909 and 191 2 were lean. We shall 

 have a word or two more to say on this matter when 

 we come to the Sperm-whale. 



Almost all our Scottish Nordcapers have been landed at 

 the whaling station at Buneaveneader, and almost all have 

 been caught within a limited area lying to the west and 

 south-west of the Hebrides, and beyond St Kilda, as far 

 as about io W. None have been taken on the Rockall 



