THE SOUTHERN WHALE. 167 



The female of this species produces only one cub at a 

 birth, which remains under her care lor a considerable 

 period, until, by the development of the baleen plates, it 

 is enabled to procure its own support. The whale 

 usually lives in pairs, but sometimes numbers are seen 

 together, in places to which abundance of food or other 

 causes induce them to resort. 



The unceasing persecution to which the Greenland 

 whale has been long subjected has not only thinned its 

 numbers, but driven it from localities in which it was 

 formerly common. It is at present chiefly to be found 

 in the icy seas of Spitzbergen, in Davis's Straits, Baffin's 

 Bay, and the waters of the polar circle. General colour 

 above, a velvety blackish gray ; under parts, white. 



An allied species, the Cape or Southern Whale {Ba- 

 l(Bna Aiistralis, Cuv.), but not attaining to so large a 

 size, inhabits the Southern Ocean, and in the month of 

 June visits the bays of Africa adjacent to the Cape of 

 Good Hope, for the purpose of bringing forth its young. 

 It is, in fact, only the fetnales that thus approach the 

 coast, and they return to the main ocean in September, 

 Two skeletons, brought by De Lalande in 1820, are in 

 the museum of Paris, and the osteological differences 

 between this and the Greenland whale have been de- 

 scribed by Cuvier. The speculations of commerce have 

 been directed to this representative of the northern mys- 

 ticete, which at a future day may in like manner become 

 driven from its old haunts to more remote abodes. 



Fig. 1 10 is the outline of a species of Balsena {Balmna 

 Antipodarum), tenanting the ocean near New Zealand. 

 Of the mode of attacking the Greenland whale, and as 

 conveying some idea of the dangers of the contest, we 

 relate the following incident: — " Captain Lyons, of the 

 Raiih of Leith, while prosecuting the whale fishery on the 

 Labrador coast, in the season of 1802, discovered a large 

 whale at a short distance from the ship. Four boats 

 were sent in pursuit, and two of them succeeded in ap- 

 proaching it so closely together, that two harpoons were 

 struck at the same moment. The whale descended a 

 few fathoms in the direction of another of the boats. 



