204 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



sufficient proof that the whale was in pursuit of the mackerel. A large school of whales, proba- 

 bly of this species, was reported in mid-July off Nantucket Shoals, as "heading northward" 

 and "evidently in pursuit of mackerel" (Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, vol. 90, no. 3, July 

 17, 1909) but it seems quite as likely that in this and other similar cases, the mackerel were 

 merely associated with the whales in following the small herring or other prey. Fishermen 

 on the Maine coast also tell me that mackerel are eaten by the Finback and though this may be 

 the case, positive confirmatory evidence is much needed. Mr. J. Henry Blake informs me 

 that the mackerel fishermen sometimes report that these whales come up under their nets and 

 engulf some of the fish they are endeavoring to seine. A Finback killed in the Shetland 

 Islands, June 8, 1905, was found to have devoured herring, mackerel, and a dogfish, the last 

 no doubt, engulfed accidentally with the other fish (Millais). 



On the Labrador and Newfoundland coasts the Finbacks devour enormous numbers of 

 capeUn (Mallotus villosus), a small fish with the general appearance of a smelt. The stomachs 

 of several Finbacks I examined at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, in 1903, were entirely filled 

 with these fish. Like the herring they move in vast shoals so that the whales can readily 

 engulf them in quantity. 



Brown (1868, p. 547) in writing of the Cetacea of the Greenland seas, observes that Fin- 

 backs eat cod and that he has known of eight hundred being found in the stomach of one. 

 Brown was a naturalist of some repute, but his statement seems to need verification. More- 

 over, eight hundred cod might be a large meal even for a whale. Low (1906), in the Cruise 

 of the Neptune, implies that these whales pursue the shoals of cod into the waters of north- 

 east Labrador. More precise evidence on this matter is greatly to be desired. 



Breeding Habits and Young. 



Almost nothing is known in a definite way, concerning the breeding habits of the Balae- 

 nopterae. Copulation takes place at the surface but it is not clear that there is any special 

 rutting' season though Guldberg (1886) concludes that pairing takes place early in the year. 

 The Nantucket Inquirer of August 21, 1833, reports what was probably a mating of these 

 whales in Massachusetts Bay in early August of that year. A Captain Ezra Smith observed 

 three whales together, one larger and two smaller. From the larger whale, estimated to be 

 some seventy feet long, a "horn or something else, rose straight up, he should judge from ten 

 to fifteen feet, about the size of a barrel at the bottom and a hat at the top." No doubt this 

 "horn" was the whale's extruded penis, and the animals seen were pairing. The fact that 

 individuals may be taken at the same time of year, containing foetuses of various stages of 

 growth, seems to indicate much variation in the time of breeding. The period of gestation is 

 beUeved to be probably a year or thereabouts, but there is no way of proving this. The New- 



