THE ORDER CETACEA. 1 i>7 



leave their usual and natural haunts. The season of 

 their amours, a furious storm, the pursuit of a harass- 

 ing enemy, the want of food, or excessive cold, often 

 obliges them to migrate. Sometimes they appear soli- 

 tary, sometimes in considerable numbers, according to 

 the nature of the causes which have disturbed and driven 

 them from their ordinary retreats. According to the 

 information of voyagers who have visited these regions, 

 the great whale every year, in the month of November, 

 leaves Davis's Straits, enters the river St. Lawrence, and 

 there brings forth her young, between Camarca and 

 Quebec ; and from thence, in the month of March fol- 

 lowing, they regularly return to the polar seas. 



It appears that the whale constantly remains in the 

 northern ocean, never leaving it till the female brings 

 forth her young, or when driven away by an enemy. 

 In this last case they are found generally solitary, at 

 least not more than the male and female, or the mother 

 and the young one. The spermaceti whales, however, 

 seem frequently to change their habitation, and to roam 

 about in strange seas, from considerable numbers having 

 been thrown ashore, or left dry by the retreating tide, at 

 different times. In the year 1 6i)0, two hundred of this 

 species were landed near Cairston, in the Orkneys ; and 

 in 1784, thirty-one large spermaceti whales came on 

 shore on the west coast of Audirne, in the province of 

 Lower Brittany, in France. 



ENEMIES OF THE WHALE. 



The greatest and most terrible of the small whale is 

 the physeter microps, or small-eyed cachalot. As soon 

 as he perceives the pike-headed whale, the porpoise, 

 and some others, he darts upon them, and tears them 



