264 HISTORY AND DETAILS OF WHALING. 



October, but bowhead whales have never been seen there. 

 Right whales are taken on the Kodiak ground from May to 

 September ; and from March, or as early as the sea is free from 

 ice, until November, in the Ochotsk Sea. Eight whales are 

 found in the southern part of the sea, and boioheads are found 

 in the north and western part of it at the same time. Bowhead 

 whales are found and captured in the Arctic Ocean as soon as 

 the ice breaks up, which is usually in June, until October. 



The right whale is a cold water fish. It has been found by 

 the examination of " records kept by different ships for hun- 

 dreds of thousands of days, that the tropical regions of the 

 ocean are to the right whale as a sea of fire, through which he 

 cannot pass, and into which he never enters." 



It has also been supposed, that since the right whale does not 

 cross the torrid zone, which to him is as a belt of liquid fire 

 through whieh he cannot pass, therefore " the right whale of 

 the northern hemisphere is a different animal from that of the 

 southern." 



It is, however, a well-established fact, "that the same kind 

 of whale which is found off the shores of Greenland, in Baf- 

 fin's Bay, etc., is also found in the North Pacific, and about 

 Behring Straits ; the inference therefore is, that there must be 

 an opening for the passage of whales from one part of the Arc- 

 tic Ocean to the other." 



The following facts are taken from Maury's recent work on 

 " The Physical Geography of the Sea," and cannot fail of being 

 interesting to whalemen, and indeed to all classes of readers : — 



"It is the custom among whalers to have their harpoons 

 marked with date and name of the ship ; and Dr. Scoresby, in 

 his work on 'Arctic Voyages,' mentions several instances of 

 whales that have been taken near Behring's Straits side with 

 harpoons in them bearing the stamps of ships that were known 

 to cruise on the Baffin's Bay side of the American conti- 

 nent ; and as, in one or two instances, a very short time had 

 elapsed between the date of capture in the Pacific and the date 



