408 NATURAL SCIENCE [June 



severity of the weather, this more northerly wintering station is 

 quite in conformity with the habit of these creatures of at all times 

 frequenting the loose ice on the margin of the pack. At Holstein- 

 borg (66° 56' N.) the whales, as recorded in the journals, made 

 their appearance generally in the first half of December, and 

 remained along the coasts or in the fjords till March. Further 

 north, in Disco Bay (about 69° N.) they appear about the same time 

 as at Holsteinborg, but stay longer, generally having departed by the 

 middle of June;^ whilst in Omenak Sound (71° N.) " they are found 

 not only through the whole month of June," but even as late as the 

 beginning of July. Finally, between Proven and Upernavik, situated 

 between 72° and 73° N, " the whales make their appearance con- 

 siderably earlier than at the more southern parts of the coast. They 

 have been regularly observed there by the month of October, and in 

 some instances even at the end of September. They are then seen 

 through November and some part of December, and again towards 

 spring from April to July," evidently indicating a double migration. 

 These writers further observe that, so far as can be ascertained by 

 records dating back to 1721, although the numbers are vastly 

 reduced, there has been absolutely no change in the time or route of 

 the migrating whales. It must be understood that these observa- 

 tions all refer to the east side of the Strait, where the extent and 

 condition of the ice differ entirely from those prevailing in the same 

 latitudes on the west side. 



Before following the whales to the westward, it will be well to 

 ascertain, if possible, how far their range extends in the direction of 

 Smith Sound. Baffin, who was the first to penetrate to this northern 

 latitude, in the year 1616, saw many whales in Wolstenholme Sound, 

 also in 78° N., at the entrance of Smith Sound; Ross, too, in the 

 year 1818 met with whales between 75° and 76° N. in July and 

 August, during which months, it will be remembered, they are 

 absent from the coast along which the Danish Factories are situated ; 

 but I am inclined to tliink these instances are quite exceptional and 

 that the Right Whales seldom penetrate farther north than latitude 

 75° or perhaps occasionally to the entrance of Jones Sound. That 

 they are to be looked for with success in the extreme north appears 

 very improbable, and on this point Captain (now Colonel) Feilden, 

 the naturalist to the voyage of discovery under Sir G. S. Nares in 

 1878, speaks very decidedly; he says^ "I am, however, quite satis- 

 fied on one point, and that is, no whale could inhabit at the present 

 day the frozen sea to the north of Robinson Channel. To penetrate 

 thither from the north- water of Baffin's Bay would be a too hazardous 



^ Here whales are sometimes taken by tlie whalers on their way north in the month 

 of May. 



- "Narrative of a voyage to the Polar Seas during 1875-6, with Natural History 

 Notes," by H. W. Feilden. 2 vols. Loudon, 1878. VoL ii., p. 197. 



