The White Whale. ii 



animal, when not hunted and persecuted. " Schools " of Beluga will often 

 accompany a ship, and gambol round it for days. It preys on fishes of many 

 kinds, but its favourite food is the squid ( 0;«?Wrts^rej?^cs sagittatus). Great 

 quantities of the mandibles of this cephalopod, packed in masses, one within 

 another, are generally found in the stomach of this and other whales. 



The female produces one cub at a birth, and, like other whales, displays 

 great affection for it. It follows all her movements, and does not quit her 

 until it is of considerable size. 



Information gathered from trustworthy sources leads me to believe that 

 the annual migrations of the Beluga are so different from — in fact, so contrary 

 to — those of almost all other whales, that further knowledge of its nomadic, 

 but doubtless systematic roamings would be very interesting. 



Dr. Robert Brown, F.L.S., in his " Memoir on the Mammalian Fauna of 

 Greenland " (Proc. Zool. Soc, 1868), says that it winters in the Arctic Seas, 

 and is only seen thei'e from November till the end of May, and that during 

 that period it is found in immense numbers crowding the broken places in the 

 ice — spaces which remain open even in the most severe winter. He describes 

 a scene of hundx-eds of White Whales and Narwhals protruding their heads 

 at one of these holes — no other spot presenting itself for miles around — the 

 eager struggles of the animals to keep their positions being such as to lead 

 him to compare it to " an Arctic Black Hole of Calcutta." Hundreds of 

 Esquimaux and Danes resorted thither with their dogs and sledges, and when 

 one shot a whale, another harpooned it to prevent it being pushed aside by 

 the anxious crowd of breathers. Dozens of White Whales and Narwhals were 

 killed, but many were lost before they were got home by the ice breaking up 

 soon after. In the ensuing summer the natives found many washed up in 

 the bays and inlets around. Fabricius describes a similar scene. In these 

 breathing-holes the White Whale often becomes the prey of the Polar bear, 

 which by biting and clawing it every time it rises to breathe (which it must 

 do at one spot, having no other to go to) soon exhausts and kills it. 



In the month of June the Beluga leaves the coasts of Danish Greenland, 

 south of 72 deg. N. lat., and, rounding Cape Farewell, visits the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, and until the end of July is found in more or less abundance in 

 the estuary of every important river along the coasts of Labrador and 

 Hudson's Bay, between 53 deg. and 60 deg. N. lat. According to the 

 Chevalier Charles Louis Giesecke, author of the article on " Greenland " in 

 the " Edinburgh Encyclopaedia," it runs up Davis's Sti-ait in November, and 

 then appears on the west coast of Q-reenland, usually arriving in vast herds — 

 males and females together — in rough weather, with the wind from the 

 south-west. Quite in accordance with this is an account given me by a 

 friend of his having met with the Beluga in the North Atlantic in the 

 month of October, on the passage from New York to England. No sooner 

 had they struck the Gulf Stream, he says, than they fell in with " schools " 

 of White Whales, which accompanied the ship for some days. The animals 

 were probably shaping a north-easterly course towards Iceland and Spitzbergen. 

 Captain Scoresby mentions having several times seen them near the latter 

 island, but never in numbers of more than three or four at a time. 



The Beluga is also found near Nova Zembla, and is very plentiful in the 

 White Sea. A regular " fishery " of it is carried on in the spring and early 

 summer at Solza, near the mouth of the River Dvviua. Steller saw it also on 



