BULLETIN OF THP] UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 349 



tliis uuinber agaiu to include those which pass within sight of the look- 

 out station in January (for the "down season "lasts two mouths), we have 

 one hundred and sixty whales as the number that may readily be seen 

 at the present time from one point alone during the " down season." 

 What proportion this number bears to the number passing offshore 

 would be hard to say, but it is certainly less than half, since the whales 

 near the coast are mostly females seeking bays and lagoons in which to 

 bring forth their young, which would leave the males and young 

 whales unaccounted for. 



These safe and obviously low estimates, and the above table showing 

 the actual catch during the past three seasons, afl'ord a very fair show- 

 ing for a species so scarce in 1880 that only one individual could be 

 captured, and indicate a tendency towards its re establishment while 

 unmolested in its breeding resorts. 



Food, young, parasites, and habits.— The opinion of the men 

 with whom I talked is that it does not feed to any great extent outside of 

 its arctic habitat. It is certainly much thinner on the northward than 

 on the southward run, a male that would yield CO or more barrels of oil 

 in the down season yielding less than 25 two months later. Whalers 

 admit their ignorance of what constitutes the food of this animal, and 

 can find nothing in its stomach during the breeding season. 



The young Rhachianectes just before birth has a narrow, irregular, 

 longitudinal ridge along the posterior part of the back, which I did not 

 observe in the adult. It extends from about opposite the vent to the 

 flukes and is interrupted in many places. This ridge probably corre- 

 sponds to the series of transverse ridges along the back of the adult as 

 described by Scammon. Although the young whales which T saw on 

 the beach at San Simeon had been dead but a short time and were but 

 slightly decomposed, the baleen was so loosely attached that it had 

 slipped from it» ])lace in the jaws. It was not frayed and ragged on 

 the inner surface as in that of the adult. 



The adults usually have many barnacles deeply imbedded in the skin. 

 The specimens I ])reserved have been identified by Mr. W. H. Dall as 

 Cryptolepas rhachianecti. Numerous specimens of the whale-louse 

 {(Jyamns) were also seen. 



While cruising among the lagoons of Lower California in 1884, search- 

 ing for sea-elephants, 1 heard many stories told by the natives of the 

 ferocity of the female gray whales when attacked in their breeding 

 places— stories amply attested by the number of graves of ill-fated whalers 

 one meets with all along these desolate shores. When her young had 

 been killed, the female, actuated apparently by motives of revenge, at- 

 tacked boat after boat, demolishing it and scattering and drowning its 

 occupants. This dangerous character gained for the animal its common 

 name of "devil fish," and that fatalities were of frequent occurrence 

 may be emphasized by the statement that in the vicinity of the now 

 deserted lagoons a leading feature in the landscape is the solitary grave 

 with its conspicuous fence of weather-worn whale-ribs. 



