258 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



where they formed two groups, or tribes, one migrating annually 

 down the Asiatic east coast from the Arctic to Korea, the other down 

 the American west coast, reaching south to latitude 20° N. in mid- 

 winter, and then returning north again. Gray whales apparently 

 were once much more widespread throughout the world, as was dis- 

 covered in 1937 when the Hollanders drained a new portion of the 

 Zuider Zee in their country, and a skull and part of a skeleton of one 

 was unearthed. Later, another was dug up in the same area. They 

 have very strange habits for whales. The males appear to have strong 

 possessive feelings about their females and young and they will — 

 and we use the present tense advisedly because, although gray 

 whales were thought to have become extinct when they vanished 

 from the American coast about 1895, ^^ey were rediscovered in fair 

 abundance in Korea by Roy Chapman Andrews in this century — 

 attack anyone or anything molesting them. Lone bulls will also at- 

 tack boats on sight, especially small ones, and they are very agile, 

 powerful, and persistent creatures. They can swim in shallower 

 places than any other whale and during the breeding season will 

 actually rest in only two feet of water on shoal beaches during low 

 tides. Their normal cruising speed is about four to five knots and they 

 do not appear to be able to do more than nine or ten. They love to 

 splash about in the breakers inshore because they are terribly prone 

 to all manner of parasites and are often literally covered with bar- 

 nacles and huge lice (actually species of crustaceans). To free them- 

 selves of these, they rub along sandy bottoms and scratch themselves 

 on rocks and this often produces large open sores, for the skin is 

 very thin. All kinds of other parasites then enter the wounds which, 

 when they do eventually heal, leave large white spots. 



There is one creature that scares them into a frenzy and this is the 

 killer whale, upon the approach of which they either dash hysteri- 

 cally for the shore, or become so terrified that they fall into a state 

 of advanced catalepsy and just float like dead things, often bottom 

 side up. The killers delight in tearing off the gray whales' lower jaws 

 and pulling out their tongues, but then, killers will do this to any- 

 thing they can't swallow whole. 



The Siwash and other Amerindians of the West had hunted these 

 mammals among the kelp beds in dories for countless aeons, and the 

 Spanish made some halfhearted attempts to do likewise in the early 



