1898] THE MIGRATION OF THE RIGHT WHALE 405 



Wrangel, the Russian explorer, in 1823, says they are not to be 

 found ; but passing to the eastward they become more abundant as 

 Bering Strait is approached, and to this he attributes the increase 

 of population he found along the shore in that direction. 



We may therefore, I tliink, dismiss from our minds any idea of 

 the Right Whale habitually visiting the seas to the eastward of 

 Spitzbergen ; or in the present day of any interchange or over- 

 lapping of the individuals of this species inhabiting the Greenland 

 seas and those to the north of Bering Strait by means of a north- 

 east passage or the reverse, whether by westward drift or voluntary 

 migration. I shall, however, later on have something to say with 

 regard to the probability of the Bering Strait whales visiting the 

 Atlantic by a west-to-east migration. 



The whale-fishery in the Greenland seas has, as an industry, 

 almost reached a vanishing point, and the vast fleet of costly vessels 

 hailing from many ports, which formerly visited these waters every 

 summer, had in the past season of 1897 dwindled to three vessels 

 only, from the one port of Dundee ; by these only two whales, one 

 of which was killed, were seen. The absence of whales is not 

 absolute x^roof of their non-existence, but may depend on various 

 causes, some of which at least are well known to the whalers, as I 

 have endeavoured to explain from time to time in my annual " Notes 

 on the Seal and Whale Fishery," published in The Zoologist 

 (1884-98). Here I can only say that they depend mainly on the 

 condition of the ice; but there is no doubt — more especially since 

 the introduction of steam — that the race, if for a few years longer 

 saved from absolute extinction, will owe the extension to its acquired 

 habits of greater caution ; ^ and to the expensive nature of the outfit 

 required for its pursuit rendering the business unremunerative. 



Part II. — West of Greenland 



The difficulties encountered in an attempt to trace the periodic 

 migrations of the Right Whale in the narrow seas to the west of 

 Greenland are by no means of the same nature as those experienced 

 when following its movements in the vastly more extensive area of 

 the Greenland Seas proper, Not only is the field of observation 

 more restricted, but although the pursuit of the whale in these 

 waters is comparatively a new occupation, it has been more 

 thoroughly and systematically worked, for, in addition to the 

 records of the Danish factories on the west coast of Greenland, 

 there have been voyages undertaken by men of considerable scien- 



1 In the year 1697, 188 vessels killed in that one season 1959 whales off Spitzbergen. 

 That these too confiding animals soon forsook bay after bay of these blood-stained waters 

 for more secure quarters is not surprising. 



