1898] THE MIGRATION OF THE RIGHT WHALE 41 1 



to pass through Fury-and-Hecla Strait, at the east entrance of which 

 we again find them abundant, as also all along the shore of Melville 

 Peninsula into Hudson Strait. A detachment goes west through 

 Frozen Strait into Repulse Bay and Eowe's Welcome (where the 

 ' Peiseverance ' has wintered for the three past seasons, securing six 

 whales), and finally, either winters in that locality or passes round by 

 Southampton Island, and rejoins the main body to winter in Hudson 

 Strait or thereabout. The route will be found marked on the ac- 

 companying chart (PI. xii.), for which I am mainly indebted to Captain 

 David Gray, and however unlikely it might seem for the whales 

 in any number to pass through so narrow a passage as Pury-and- 

 Hecla Strait, there appears every reason to believe that this is 

 really the route chosen by a definite section. 



It is a much more simple matter to follow the old whales on 

 their return journey along the west side of Baffin Bay and Davis 

 Strait. At the approach of winter, when the young ice begins to 

 cover the bays, the old whales turn southward, many of them pass- 

 ing through Eclipse Sound and Pond's Inlet. They travel along the 

 west side of the strait, being due at Home Bay and Cape Hooper 

 about the 15th of September. From their habit of hugging the 

 shore (a habit which it will be remembered they share with the 

 whales found under similar circumstances on the east coast of 

 Greenland), these whales are known as ' rock-nosers.' They con- 

 tinue working south till they reach Cumberland Gulf, which is their 

 last resting-place before the accumulated ice drives them into the 

 more open water farther south. There they remain until the re- 

 turning spring enables them once more to commence their north- 

 ward migration along the broken margin of the ice trending towards 

 the east side of the strait. So well are these different lines of 

 migration recognised by the whalers, and so constant are the 

 characters of the individuals using them, that, as in the Greenland 

 seas, they are by some regarded as different ' races,' and called 

 after the localities in which they are found, as ' middle-icers,' 

 ' rock-nosers,' and ' Pond's Bay fish,' but, as Dr Brown remarks, 

 these distinctions do not designate separate " species, or even 

 varieties, but express a geographical fact and a zoological habit " 

 {I.e., p. 80). 



As mentioned when speaking of the whales inhabiting the seas 

 to the east of Greenland, there is also abundant evidence of the 

 Davis Strait whales likewise frequenting the same locality year after 

 year ; perhaps the most recent instance of this is the most remark- 

 able. In September 1894 Captain M'Kay of the ' Terra Nova ' killed 

 in Davis Strait an unusually large whale, in the blubber of which 

 he found a harpoon, the steel of which was quite bright, bearing the 

 name of the 'Jean ' of Bo'ness, dated " forty years back." The ' Jean ' 



