COMMON FINBACK WH^\LE. 203 



April 23, 1896, a "good-sized school of whales" is reported about Cape Cod as following 

 the herring school. 



About March 15, 1899, two large Finbacks were reported in Provincetown Harbor "in 

 pursuit of scattered schools of small herring, and for an hour or two rushed about in plain 

 view of many fishermen who made no attempt to capture them. They were the first of the 

 spring school to enter the harbor, though several were seen in the offing more than a fortnight" 

 before (Nantucket Journal, vol. 21, no. 24, March 16, 1899). 



What was said to have been the largest school of Finback Whales seen in Massachusetts 

 Bay since 1881, was reported in early February, 1905, pursuing the large herring then in those 

 waters (Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, vol. 85, no. 32, Feb. 4, 1905). 



An item in the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror (vol. 81, no. 30) for January 20, 1901, re- 

 ports that "whales and herring have appeared off Provincetown. The fishermen have caught 

 many of the latter." It is rather unusual for the herring to appear in numbers at this season, 

 but their presence explains that of the whales, which doubtless were in pursuit of them. 



H. F. Moore (1898, p. 404) writes that in Passamaquoddy Bay, Maine, "finback whales 

 feed upon herring, but, though occasionally seen in summer, do not appear in numbers before 

 October. A letter from Mr. McLaughlin, dated December 30 [1895], says that 'for ten days a 

 large school of herring and whales has been off this station' (Southern Head, Grand Manan). 

 The whales sometimes enter the weirs and are killed." 



Mr. Roscoe C. Emery, of Eastport, Maine, writes me in regard to a Finback Whale stranded 

 near there January 17, 1912, that "a large herring trapped in its baleen showed that it had 

 been feeding on herring." 



Millais reports that a Finback brought in to one of the Shetland stations contained in 

 its stomach many large herring still unspawned. 



These few references are sufficient to show that the Finback Whales follow the schools of 

 herring and destroy large quantities not only of small ones but also of large fish about to spawn. 

 If, as is supposed, the herring .seek deeper water during the colder months, it seems probable 

 that they go too deep for these whales to follow, since their return shoreward is coincident 

 in marked degree with the reappearance of the whales (see under heading of Manner of Oc- 

 currence). The presence of the herring may in turn, tlepend largely on that of the minute 

 crustaceans which constitute so large a portion of its food, and these too largely desert the 

 surface waters during the inclement season. The whales feed upon both herring and crusta- 

 ceans and thus their movements are in part regulated by the migrations of both these latter. 



I know of no positive evidence that this whale feeds on mackerel on our coasts, although it 

 is said to do so. Paul Dudley includes this, with herring, as one of the species preyed on by 

 the Finback. In 1861, a whale was killed that had appeared off Nauset "in the midst of a 

 fleet of some 200 mackerel fishermen" (Barnstable Patriot, Nov. 12, 1861) but this is not 



