15£ WHALE-FISHERY. 



simultaneous retreat throughout the whole fishing 

 limits, and all disappear within the space of a very- 

 few days. On such occasions it has often happened, 

 that not a single whale has been seen by any indi- 

 vidual belonging to the whole Greenland fleet, after 

 perhaps the middle of June, but more commonly- 

 after the first or second week in July, notwithstand- 

 ing many of the fleet may have cruised about in the 

 fishing region for a month afterwards. In the year 

 181S, whales were found in considerable numbers 

 in the open sea, during the greater part of the fish- 

 ing season, but in the greatest abundance about the 

 end of June and beginning of July. On the 6th of 

 July, they departed into the ice, and were followed 

 by the fishers; several were killed during the three 

 succeeding days, but they wholly disappeared after 

 the 9th. Notwithstanding, several ships cruised 

 " the country," for some weeks afterwards, in all 

 navigable directions, through an extent of four de- 

 grees of latitude, and penetrated the ice as far as 

 the main western body, in different parallels, it 

 does not appear that a single whale was caught, 

 and as far as I was able to learn, but one was seen, 

 and this individual was observed to be rapidly ad- 

 vancing towards the north-west. 1 do not mention 

 this as an uncommon circumstance, because a simi- 

 lar case occurs frequently, but as a single illustra- 

 tion of the foregoing observation. 



When the fishery for the season, in the opinion of 

 the British whalers, has altogether ceased, it ap- 



