MIGRATIONS OF WHALES KELLOGG 491 



past the Shetlands, they are in the warm Gulf Stream which sweeps 

 in past North Cape, Finmark, where they first meet the Arctic cur- 

 rent. From here they spread out along the Finmark coast, though 

 some also visit the Arctic Ocean between Spitzbergen and Nova 

 Zemlya in the summer. There are stranding records for France, 

 Holland, and Germany. Sei whales have been reported to occur 

 as far south as Cape Blanco, Africa. (Andrews, 1916, p. 312.) 

 This whale has been known to strand on the Florida coast in May 

 and on the Virginia coast in March. There is an August record 

 for Chatham Island, Mass. 



Sei whales appear off Port Alexander, Benguela, about the middle 

 of June and disappear in September and October. (Olsen, 1913, 

 p. ID83.) Their visit to the Falkland Islands includes most of the 

 months of February and March. Capt. H. G. Melson wrote Andrews 

 (1916, p. 319) that he had passed thousands of sei whales between the 

 Falklands and 20° south latitude off Cape Frio, Brazil. 



Sei whales were reported to have been seen (Liouville, 1913, p. 

 110) off the Bay of Matha, in Bransfield Strait, and abreast the South 

 Shetlands. Liouville also credits Amundsen with the discovery of 

 this species in the Bay of Baleens close by the great barrier of the 

 Ross Glacier and believes that the sei whale approaches closer to the 

 South Pole than any other whale. There is a strong possibility that 

 the piked whale may have been confused with this species. 



Morch (1911, p. 665) records the occurrence of sei whales off the 

 coast of Chili. The Terra Nova Expedition met with sei whales dur- 

 ing the month of October, 1910, along the northern limit of the drift 

 ice south of Australia from 111° 18' east longitude to 160° 3' east 

 longitude (LiUie, 1915, p. 117), but none was observed in the Antarc- 

 tics. A young female was taken off the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, 

 in the winter. 



We have very little definite infonnation in regard to their seasonal 

 occurrence along the western coast of North America. Sei whales 

 have been taken in the vicinity of Vancouver Island and one was 

 taken at Moss Landing, Calif. 



In the North Pacific it would seem that some of the sei whales pass 

 the winter in the waters off the Indian Archipelago, for they occur in 

 the vicinity of the Island of Solor in May. Leaving the southern 

 islands of Japan, they work their way northward from April onward. 

 June and July are the months when they occur in the greatest abun- 

 dance along the eastern Japanese coast, but they rarely occur in the 

 Japan Sea. (Andrews, 1916, p. 321.) In the North Pacific off 

 Aikawa, Japan (approximately 40° north latitude), the sei whales 

 came in early June and left before the 1st of September. 



Since Aikawa, Japan, is fully 2,000 miles south of North Cape, 

 Finmark, their northward migrations in the Pacific and Atlantic 



