66 SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRITLSH SEAS. 



(their proper winter habitat) shortly to be mentioned. That the Peterhead 

 men did not speak of any marked difference in the Whale which visited 

 their Bay and those they had just returned from pursuing in the Polar ice 

 may perhaps be accounted for partly by the similarity of the two species, 

 and partly by their not having killed the adult individual ; whilst the restless 

 activity of the latter may possibly be due, not only to the presence of its 

 young one, but, in part, to the superior activity of the Atlantic species, which 

 is said to render it so much more dangerous and difficult to catch. 



But it may be said that if there be such a species, having a range, which 

 in summer extends from the entrance of Davis' Strait to Iceland and the 

 North Cape, why are they not occasionally met with by the whalers in 

 crossing the Atlantic to and from their more northern fishing grounds } 

 Although such an encounter with a creature confessedly of rare occurrence 

 would be in the highest degree improbable, still here again, through the 

 kindness of Capt. Gray I am able to say that such encounrers have taken 

 place, and could we know the experience of all the whalers who have crossed 

 the Atlantic, perhaps other instances might be put on record. Captain David 

 Gray's father told him that while mate to his father (Capt. David Gray's 

 grandfather), when crossing the Atlantic on the homeward voyage from 

 Davis' Strait, the vessel ran into a Greenland Whale (as he supposed it) and 

 that he was anxious to lower some boats and go after it, but that his father 

 would not allow him to do so, there being too much sea running at that time. 

 This again would be in the summer season. It seems probable that not 

 being aware of the existence of a Southern species of Right- Whale, or in 

 consequence of the high sea which was running at the time, the Grays did 

 not observe, or, at least, failed to mention, the peculiarities which distinguish 

 the Atlantic species. But I am indebted to Capt. Gray for other instances 

 of the occurrence of this species not far from Cape Farewell, and in at least 

 one case the species was identified, the observer being aware of the existence 



