480 



ANNUAL BEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1928 



they remain until the accumulated ice drives them farther south. 

 When bowheads were more numerous in the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries, they apparently followed the ice down to the Strait of 

 Belle Isle and the St. Lawrence and remained there during the 

 winter months. (True, 1904, pp. 12, 43.) In more recent years the 

 southern limit of their winter range seems to have been approxi- 

 mately 58° north latitude oif Labrador. 



On the west coast of Greenland bowheads appear annually, with 

 great regularity at definite seasons, and enter the larger sounds. The 

 ice conditions there are different from those on the opposite side of 

 the strait, and hence the seasonal occurrence of bowheads is somewhat 

 different. According to the records of the old Danish fishery the 

 bowheads on their southward migration make their appearance be- 

 tween Proven and Upernavik (72° and 73° N. lat.) late in September 



BOWHEAD 



Figure 4. — Distribution map for the bowhead whale, with supposed migration routos 

 in north latitudes. Adapted from Southwell (1898) 



or early in October and remain until December, when they depart. 

 They reach Disco Bay in December and some remain there until 

 June, while others proceed southward to Holsteinsborg and Sukker- 

 toppen. At Holsteinsborg the first bowheads appear during the last 

 days of November or early in December, and occasionally a few 

 remain as late as March. In severe winters bowheads were more 

 numerous than normally in the larger sounds and fjords at Sukker- 

 toppen during the months of December, January, and February. 



It has been observed that the females and the young rarely mi- 

 grate southward along the west side of Davis Strait in the autumn. 

 The evidence assembled by Southwell (1898, pp. 409, 410) would 

 seem to indicate that they follow a more westerly route than the 

 males, and that they reach their winter feeding grounds through 

 Hudson Strait. On August 15, 1829, Sir John Koss noticed many 

 immature whales off Bellot's Strait at the upper end of the Gulf 



