MIGRATIONS OF WHALES KELLOGG 485 



from the westward, and they move past toward the east. (Thomp- 

 son, 1918, p. 233.) The records of the whaling stations show that 

 the blue whales appear in the cold water off the Finmark coast from 

 May to June. Varanger fjord was a favorite resort in the summer as 

 late as 1880. Here blue whales rarely made their appearance as early 

 as May, but generally about the middle of June, and they left by the 

 middle of September. (Southwell, 1905, p. 414.) Thus during the 

 summer months, June, July, and August, they are found in the Arctic 

 Ocean and the North Sea off the coasts of Greenland, Iceland, Spitz- 

 bergen. Bear Island, and Finmark, and thence along the whole Mur- 

 man coast to Nova Zemlya and the White Sea. Their departure from 

 northern regions in the autumn seems to be correlated with the fall- 

 ing off of their food supply and not with a lowering of the surface 

 temperature. 



In autumn, j^articularly in August or early September, they mi- 

 grate from the eastern Arctic Ocean toward the west and south in 

 the open sea between Iceland and Faroe and at this season are found 

 along the western coasts of the Hebrides and Ireland. In October 

 and November migrating blue whales appear off the coast of New- 

 foundland. It is believed that they pass the winter in the open seas 

 between the eastern coast of North America and the Azores. 



Very little is known in regard to the migration of blue whales in 

 the South Atlantic. They are known to occur in fairly large num- 

 bers in the open seas west of South Georgia during the month of 

 December and are present in the vicinity of South Shetland in Feb- 

 ruary and March. As early as December 30, 1892, blue whales were 

 seen in the vicinity of Erebus and Terror Gulf, Graham Land. 

 (Bruce, 1915, p. 494.) Blue whales were observed on December 31, 

 1909, in Bransfield Strait and they had advanced as far south as the 

 Bay of Matha by January 14. (Liouville, 1913, pp. 4, 33-35.) On 

 January 19, 1910, blue whales were noted as far south as 108° 17' 

 west longitude and G9° 15' south latitude. Again on February 24, 

 1898, Racovitza (1903, p. 46) reported seeing a blue whale in the 

 open sea at 81° 31' west longitude and 69° 31' south latitude. 



No records for blue whales off the coast of equatorial Africa wei'e 

 found, but Morch (1911, p. 664) states that they are found near the 

 west coast of Africa in the summer. Great numbers of blue whales 

 have been observed off Saldanha Bay, Southwest Africa, in July, 

 and a female with a newborn calf was taken on September 14, 1912 

 (Hinton, 1925, p. 192). The records of the whaling station at Sal- 

 danha Bay show that blue whales were taken from May 21 to Oc- 

 tober 10 in 1910. 



At South Georgia some blue whales remain in the vicinity through- 

 out the Antarctic winter. According to Risting (1928, pp. 21-22) 



24034—29 32 



