WHALES LANDED AT SCOTTISH WHALING STATIONS 225 



1908, none ; 1909, four ; 1910, seven ; 191 1, at least two, viz., 

 at Belmullet, on 20th May (Burfield). These records do not 

 carry us very far, for they are not strictly comparable 

 throughout ; the far western grounds in the neighbourhood 

 of Rockall were very little fished till 191 1, but still they were 

 visited by the vessels from Buneavenader at least two years 

 earlier, and would doubtless have been fished more had they 

 proved productive. Taking our records for what they may 

 be worth, we find the remarkable fact that 191 1, in which no 

 Nordcapers were caught at all, was by a long way the best 

 year for Sperm-whales ; while in 1908, which was the best 

 year for Nordcapers, only a single Sperm was landed at the 

 Scottish and none at the Irish stations. I take it that 

 the Sperm is certainly, and in a more marked degree than 

 the Nordcaper, a whale of the warm oceanic waters. 



Of our forty-two Sperm-whales all but one are recorded 

 as males, the exception being a fish of 56 feet long caught 

 30 miles N.E. of Rockall in July 1912. Mr Haldane told us 

 of a female Sperm landed at Buneaveneader in 1905 ; but in 

 a later paper he withdrew the statement, the owner Captain 

 Herlofsen telling him that a mistake had been made. I am 

 very much inclined to suspect that a clerical error may have 

 been made in our case also, and that, in short, no female 

 Sperm has been landed either at the Scottish or Irish stations 

 since the fishery began. The Sperm-whale, unlike our other 

 whales, is a polygamous animal ; and, as in the case of the 

 Red-deer or the Fur-seal, great battles take place upon 

 the breeding grounds for the possession of the cows. The 

 victorious bulls, the older and stronger ones, remain in 

 possession, and the younger and weaker ones are beaten off 

 the field, and go out into the world (as is generally believed) 

 in migratory bands. We may gather from the account 

 of the many cows among the shoal on the coast of France, 

 recorded by Lacepede (to say nothing of Sir Thomas 

 Browne's case) that this is not the whole story. The cows 

 migrate also. Moreover, Harmer has recently described a 

 very young Sperm-whale only 18 feet long, stranded in 

 Co. Galway in September 19 16 ; and this was doubtless 

 a " sucker," and had been in its mother's company. But it is 



