484 



ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 2 8 



the cooler inshore waters as far south as the Carolina coast. Not- 

 withstanding the fact that blue whales have commonly been held to 

 be ice-loving animals, an exceptionally large individual entered the 

 harbor at Cristobal, the northern entrance to the Panama Canal, in 

 January, 1922. (Harmer, 1923, p. 1085.) The stranding of a large 

 blue whale in December, 1916, on the south coast of the Preanger 

 Regencies, Java, is recorded by Eeuter (1919). An 84-foot whale 

 which was washed ashore on Amherst Island, a small island south 

 of Ramri Island, off Burma, during the last rains of 1851 may have 

 been a blue whale, although it has been named Balaenoptera indica. 

 These occurrences would seem to indicate that the tropical .seas 

 are traversed from time to time by blue whales, and that there may 

 be an occasional intermingling of the northern and the southern 

 herds. 



Blue whales are rare visitants to the New England coastal wa- 

 ters, but as early as Februar}'^ they have been observed migrating 

 eastward off the coast of Newfoundland, and in late March or April 

 they pass Iceland. On March 1, 1903, Captain Nilson (Millais, 1906, 



Figure G. — Blue whale \_8ihhaldus miisctilus (Linnaeus)]. Outline drawing 

 the short fore flipper and the narrowly spaced throat grooves 



Notice 



p. 253) saw over 200 at intervals between Banquereau and St. Pierre 

 Bank off Newfoundland. Blue whales are fairly common in March 

 off Newfoundland and occur also in the Gulf of St. Lawrence after 

 the ice goes out. From June to mid- August they follow the " kril," 

 but a few return in late August, and small numbers stay until Novem- 

 ber. From March to November blue whales are found off the west 

 coast of Greenland, generally south of the Arctic Circle. 



In March and April at Faroe blue whales are observed coming 

 from the southwest on their northward run. (Thompson, 1918, p. 

 234.) Other migrating blue whales pass the west coast of Ireland 

 and the Hebrides in May and June. The records for the Scottish 

 stations show that June to October is the main season for blue whales 

 (Thompson, 1918, p. 232), but Haldane (1908, p. 69) remarks that 

 they seem to be more common off Faroe, Iceland, and Finmark than 

 they are oft' Scotland. The accumulated records indicate that blue 

 whales are most abundant in the vicinity of the British whaling sta- 

 tions from June to September; for Iceland, June and July; and for 

 Finmark, from June to August. (Harmer, 1927, p. 66.) Off Iceland 

 at the beginning of the season in June blue whales are seen coming up 



