492 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



Oceans may have some relation to favorable conditions for the propa- 

 gation of plankton resulting from the flooding of warmer oceanic 

 drifts with icy Arctic water. An Arctic current extends southward 

 past Kamchatka, the Kuril Islands, and Hondo, the largest of the 

 Japanese islands, to some distance south of Aikawa, while along 

 the main islands of Japan south of Tokyo runs the warm " Kuro 

 Shiro" or black current. (Andrews, 1916, p. 321.) The northward 

 migrating sei whales meet the northern Arctic current at 40° north 

 latitude off the Japan coast and at 70° north latitude off the Finmark 

 coast. 



Some of the sei whales which visit the northern coasts of Japan 

 during the summer months spend the winter near Oshima and Niki- 

 shima in southern Japan in comparatively warm waters, while others 

 proceed farther southward. One was stranded on the coast of Java 

 in October. 



The foregoing summary is rather brief and no attempt has been 

 made to go into the subject in any great detail. It is believed that 

 the available data indicates seasonal migrations and that the tabula- 

 tion of the logs of whaling vessels would greatly increase our knowl- 

 edge of the movements of these pelagic mammals. 



LITERATURE CITED 



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Andrews, Roy C, 1916. Whale Hunting with Gun and Camera. D. Appleton 

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