xii DESTRUCTION OF WHALES 177 



But it came about from the habits of the whales 

 themselves. Shortly before the birth of the young 

 whale the mother always goes to land, to some 

 favourite spot by the shore, where the calf is 

 born. The North Atlantic right whales came to 

 the Bay of Biscay for the purpose, and that one of 

 the few survivors should have entered the ancient 

 haunt in the harbour of San Sebastian for this pur- 

 pose so late as 1854, after nine centuries of persecu- 

 tion, is evidence of the strength of this instinct. 

 In the Southern Ocean also the whales came to 

 certain spots, soon well known to the whalers, to 

 give birth to their young. Among these places 

 were the bays by the Cape of Good Hope (Vaalfisch 

 Bay among them), and South Australia and New 

 Zealand. As there was no close time for whales, 

 and every cow and calf was killed, Sir William 

 Flower noted that " the result has been to the 

 southern right whale what it was to its Atlantic ally 

 after its persecution by the Basques, although it 

 was brought about in a much shorter time. To 

 destroy it in its last remaining breeding-places was 

 to destroy it everywhere. Although we have at 

 present unfortunately very little accurate informa- 

 tion about its breeding haunts, there is every reason 

 to believe that the Antarctic right whales retire in 

 the Antarctic winter nearer to the South Pole. Sir 

 James Ross in 1840, in lat. 64 nearly due south of 

 New Zealand, and again in 1842, in nearly the 

 same latitude south of the Falkland Islands, found 



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