ARCTIC ZOOLOGY. 119 



food, and with which those confined and tranquil waters 

 may be supposed to abound, cannot with any plausibiUty 

 be ascertained. Yet when it is considered in what places 

 the whale is first seen on the return of summer, and the 

 direction in which it runs at that peculiar season, little 

 doubt can be entertained of the retreats whence it has 

 issued. 



Voyagers to Hudson's Bay seldom see the " first regular 

 whales," until about the sixty-third degree. In the south- 

 west seas in Davis's Strait, they are in the early part of the 

 season oftentimes killed in great numbers. Higher up the 

 Strait, they are seldom seen till after passing Baal's River ; 

 and oft' South Bay, Western Islands, and in Disko, or 

 South East Bay, they become numerous, but are not sta- 

 tionary ; in general running to the northward, to the north- 

 eastward, or westward. Their haunts in such cases are far 

 from regular, as what is deemed in one year successful 

 fishing ground, becomes in succeeding summers quite 

 otherwise. In this respect, no doubt these animals are 

 regulated by experience of such annoyance as they have 

 met with previously. 



On the eastern side of Greenland, towards Spitzbergen, 

 they are seen in immense numbers about the 64th degree, 

 but the majority are females attended by their young ; 

 whilst on the west side of Greenland the sexes are nearly 

 equal in number, and few young ones are seen. Further 



