404 NATURAL SCIENCE [jime 



coast of Spitzbergeu in 78' N.L.," which is the usual hunting- 

 ground. 



Nordenskiold further states that fragments of the skeletons of 

 whales, thrown up in such quantities on the shores of Spitzbergen, 

 are not in his experience to be found on the shores of Novaya 

 Zemlya, or on the coasts of the Kara Sea and north coast of 

 Siberia, between the Yenisij and the Lena at which he landed. 

 Colonel Feilden also tells me that bones of the White Whale were 

 the only cetacean remains he saw on tlie shore of Novaya Zemlya, 

 either on the Barents or the Kara Sea side of the islands. Should 

 the Eight Whale stray to the eastward, it would seem more likely 

 that it should do so by a passage north of Spitzbergen, and the only 

 certain records known to the writer of the remains of this species 

 having been observed in such longitudes are the following. In 

 1897 Mr Arnold Pike " on the summit of the basaltic ridge, say 150 

 feet, which juts out from Cape Hammerfest [in one of the islands of 

 Wiche Land, east of Spitzbergen] found old whales' bones, mostly 

 very much decayed." ^ In the more northerly parallel of Franz 

 Josef Land, Leigh Smith,^ on his first visit in 1880, found portions 

 of the skeletons of " two whales " on the shore near Eira Harbour ; 

 these, Mr W. S. Bruce of the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition tells 

 me, are of very ancient date. With regard to the two Right Whales 

 said to have been seen by Mr Leigh Smith passing out of Gray Bay, 

 Mr Bruce kindly informs me, on the authority of the experienced 

 ice-master of the ' Windward,' who was with Mr Leigh Smith in 

 the Eira, and saw the whales in question, that they were not of 

 the species under consideration. Mr Bruce also says that nothing 

 was seen of Right Whales during the time the expedition remained 

 at Cape Flora. The whalers, ' Balaena,' ' Active,' and ' Diana,' which 

 visited Franz Josef Land in 1897, were also unsuccessful in their 

 search. No Right Whales appear to have been seen by De Longe 

 from the ' Jeannette.' Weyprecht, in his paper on the scientific 

 work of the ' Tegethofi',' ^ expressly says that the only species of 

 whale met with by them was the White Whale, " near the coast, 

 but pretty often." Of the supposed occurrence of this species east 

 of Spitzbergen, I have not met with a single recent instance that 

 has borne investigation, and I doubt whether in the present day 

 it passes in that direction beyond longitude 20° east. 



The Right Whale thus appears certainly not to extend its migra- 

 tions regularly to the eastward of Spitzbergen, and is probably 

 absent altogether from the Kara Sea and the Siberian waters till we 

 reach Cape Schelagskoi in 171° E. longitude. West of this Von 



1 Geocj-r. Journ. April, 1898, p. 368. 



'^ Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc, 1881, vol. iii., p. 136. 



^ Journal Boy. Geog. Soc, 1875, xlv., p. 32. 



