WHALES LANDED AT SCOTTISH WHALING STATIONS 231 



species from B. musadns} but Racovitza, who saw large 

 numbers of these whales, believes them to be identical with 

 our Blue-whales. 



Like so many other whales, the Blue-whale was long 

 supposed by naturalists to be a rare species. It is (or was 

 till very recently) unrepresented in the collections of the 

 British Museum; and up to the year 1884 (according to 

 Beddard) only nine individuals were known to have been 

 stranded on European coasts, of which nine the best known 

 is the " Longniddry whale." But ever since Svend Foyn 

 invented (or re-invented) the harpoon-gun and founded the 

 modern (Norwegian) whale-fishery, 2 Blue-whales have been 

 captured in various parts of the North Atlantic in large 

 numbers. I have not access to full statistics of the Norwegian 

 fishery, but I take the following extract from Hjort 3 : 



Blue-whales captured off the Coast of Fitunark, with 

 their Percentage-ratio to the Total Catch. 



In like manner (id id., p. 135) Captain L. Berg captured 

 in Iceland, from 1890 to 1901, some seven hundred and 

 thirty Blue-whales, an average of sixty per year. The Blue- 

 whales are the most valuable of the "Finner" whales, and 

 their pursuit was the chief object of the fishery in its earlier 

 years. The falling percentage shown in the above table is 

 mainly or very largely due to the increasing pursuit of the 

 more numerous, though individually less valuable whales, 

 and so to the scattering of the fishery over wider areas than 

 those specially frequented by the Blue-whales. 



1 Von Haast, " Notes on Skeletons of Balcenoptera atistratis, Desm., 

 the Great Southern Rorqual, or Sulphur-bottom whale," P.Z.S., 

 1883, p. 592. 



2 Cf. (e.g.) Henking, Norwegens Walfang, Mitth. d. D. Seefischerei- 

 Vereins, 1899, p. 146; W. G. Burn Murdoch, Modern Whaling and 

 Bear Hunting, 1 91 7, p. 23, etc. 



* Fiskeri ozHvalfan^st i det Nordlige Nor%e, Bergen, 1902, pp. 186,187, 



