474 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



the winter months feeding on herring shoals. The pregnant females 

 and some of the others migrate to the Tropics. 



On the western side of the North Atlantic there is a surprising 

 frequency of occurrences at unexpected seasons. Depletion in num- 

 bers may have made the normal migrating seasons less apparent. 

 Humpbacks with calves have been observed as early as February in 

 the vicinity of Bermuda and the Lesser Antilles. At Barbados, 

 humpbacks sometimes appear as early as January, and the season 

 usually extends from March to May, and all have left by June, ac- 

 cording to Lindeman (1880, p. 85). They also occur in the vicinity 

 of Tobago, Grenada, and St. Lucia during the same season. (True, 

 1904, p. 62.) The early New England whalers were accustomed to 

 find large numbers of humpbacks congregated in the waters in the 

 vicinity of the Island of Trinidad and the Gulf of Para. Available 

 data indicate that those in the Caribbean Sea generally have left it 

 by May. 



The northward movement continues until late summer. From 

 Massachusetts to Maine on the New England coast humpbacks first 

 begin to appear on their northward migration in April and are fol- 

 lowed by others in May. Large herds of humpbacks "" on passage " 

 and moving at a rapid pace have been seen in April some 200 miles 

 east of the North American coast. Humpbacks also have been ob- 

 served off the New England coast in June, July, and August. Those 

 that have been observed in these waters during the summer months 

 may either be females with calves or stragglers from the main north- 

 ward migrating schools. Capt. J. W. Collins noticed unusual num- 

 bers of northward migrating humpbacks on May 17, 1877, south of 

 Newfoundland in latitude 44° 16' north and longitude 58° 59' west. 

 (Clark, 1887, p. 22.) Guldberg states that humpbacks are rarely en- 

 countered off Newfoundland in the months January to April, but 

 then they commence to appear. A humi^back and its calf were taken 

 in Hermitage Bay, Newfoundland, in June, 1903. (Millais, 1906, 

 p. 238.) Humpbacks occur in the vicinity of Iceland in May and 

 June. It would seem that some of these humpbacks penetrate Davis 

 Strait and Baffin Bay off the Greenland coast (Brown, 1875, p. 81), 

 for they have been taken in Disco Bay in late summer and early 

 autumn, and that they then proceed southward in advance of the 

 drifting ice which issues from Baffin Bay. Large numbers of south- 

 ward migrating humpbacks were seen by Captain Larsen in Sep- 

 tember about 70 miles southeast of Cape Farewell. (Millais, 1906, 

 p. 235.) True (1904, p. Ill) was informed that humpbacks arrive in 

 large numbers in the vicinity of Snooks Arm, Newfoundland, later 

 in the year than August, and from other sources we learn that they 

 pass Newfoundland on their southward run in late September and 

 October. Southward migration seems to be a gradual process at 



