230 WHALES AND DOLPHINS 



of ten or eleven months". It is usual for a single calf to be 

 born at one time, but twins have been recorded. 



The Sei Whale is widely distributed throughout the oceans 

 of the world, and features in the commercial catch in places 

 as widely apart as the Antarctic ice-edge in the south and 

 Japan and Korea in the north. It is the most abundantly 

 taken of any species on the Norwegian coast at the present 

 time, and when whaling was carried on in British waters its 

 prevalence, as indicated by captured specimens, was only 

 exceeded by that of the Common Rorqual. 



In the North Pacific this whale undertakes more or less 

 regular migrations and is found most commonly on the 

 northern parts of the Japanese coast in June and July. In 

 the north Atlantic on the Norwegian coast Sei Whales, 

 according to Collett, come in June and disappear in August. 

 Andrews mentions the great invasions of the North Atlantic 

 by these whales in 1885, 1898, and again in 1906, when they 

 came in thousands. In the Antarctic the Sei Whale is a 

 visitor to high latitudes only for a very few months of the year, 

 in the latter half of the southern summer. That it is not 

 recorded more frequently in early and midsummer is, to 

 some extent, due no doubt to the prevalence of Blue and Fin 

 Whales during these times, and no whaler would hunt for 

 Sei Whale when these other two much more valuable species 

 were to be found. The figures given by Sir Sidney Harmer in 

 ' Southern Whaling ' indicate that the occurrence of the 

 Sei Whale is restricted in Antarctic waters. Of the total 

 number of Sei Whales taken at South Georgia over a period 

 of sixteen successive seasons, 50*4% were captured in March, 

 277% in April and 15% in February, leaving only 6*9% for* 

 the rest of the year. A similar seasonal distribution to that 

 at South. Georgia is indicated by the returns of the pelagic 

 whaling companies operating at the Antarctic ice-edge. It 

 would seem that both in the northern and southern hemispheres 

 the Sei Whale migrates into higher colder latitudes late in the 

 summer, when the water in those regions is no doubt warmer 

 than at other times of the year, but whether the reaction of 

 the whales is a direct one or whether they seek out the greatest 

 abundance of food is not easy to say. 



Of the many Sei Whales examined by Andrews on the 



