154 WHALE -FISHER Yo 



accessible to the fishers. But after the month of 

 July, this tribe also penetrates so deeply into the 

 ice, that it gets beyond the reach of its enemies. 



Experience proves, that the whale has its favour- 

 ite places of resort, depending on a sufficiency of 

 food, particular circumstances of weather, and par- 

 ticular positions and qualities of the ice. Thus, 

 though many whales may have been seen in open 

 water, when the weather was fine, after the occur- 

 rencc of a storm, perhaps not one is to be seen. 

 And, though fields are sometimes the resort of hun- 

 dreds of whales, yet, whenever the loose ice around 

 separates entirely away, the whales quit them also. 

 Hence fields seldom afford whales in much abund- 

 ance, excepting at the time when they first " break 

 out," and become accessible; that is, immediately 

 after a vacancy is made on some side by the sepa- 

 ration of adjoining fields, floes, or drift ice. Whales, 

 on leaving fields which have become exposed, fre 

 quently retire to other more obscure situations in a 

 west or northwest direction; but occasionally they 

 retreat no further than the neighbouring drift ice, 

 from whence they sometimes return to the fields at 

 regular intervals of six, twelve or twenty-four hours. 



Whales arc rarely seen in abundance in the large 

 open space of water, which sometimes occurs amidst 

 fields and floes, nor are they commonly seen in a 

 very open pack, unless it be in the immediate neigh 

 bourhood of the main western ice. They seem to 

 have a preference for close packs and patches ol 

 ice; and for fields under certain circumstances: for 



