

NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 143 



ward along the coasts of the central Atlantic .States they are turned abruptly eastward by the 

 outfitting mass of Long Island and the promontory ending in the elbow of Cape Cod. This 

 barrier forms slightly more than a right angle with the general coastline to the south, and 

 extends northeasterly for nearly five degrees of longitude or 250 miles. In passing north- 

 ward therefore, a great part of the whales in a belt 250 miles in width, are turned to the eastward 

 and converge on the south and east shores of Long Island and Massachusetts to round Cape 

 Cod. That this period of greatest abundance was the same in former times as well as during 

 the last hundred or more years, is evidenced also by the statement of Dudley, in 1725, previ- 

 ously quoted, that "in the Spring they are headed Eastward," and that "the true [i. e. best] 

 Season for the right or Whalebone Whale, is from the Beginning of February, to the End of May." 

 If a more or less steady continuance in this same direction were maintained it would result in 

 comparatively few Right Whales reaching the northern part of the Gulf of Maine, just as in 

 fall, the Nova Scotia peninsula would perhaps guide them off from those waters. This may 

 in some measure account for their apparent absence or scarcity on the shores of northern New 

 England. The more frequent appearance of whales in 'schools,' in the spring of the year may 

 mean nothing more than this convergence of the lines of movement on our southern shores. 

 Thus on April 10, 1800, a number of whales appear off Nantucket; again in the middle of May, 

 1826, a small school is found off eastern Long Island; five whales are killed off the same coast 

 in one day in April of 1847; a considerable number are off Plymouth in mid- April, 1848; finally 

 in mid-April of 1886, a small school of Right Whales appears off Tuckernuck and Nantucket, 

 and near the end of the month the same or a second school, consisting of some twenty-five 

 whales, the largest number together of which there is any record in our bounds for probably 

 over a century. During the greater part of May the northeastward movement is continued, 

 but is normally over by the middle of the month, for the records are very few indeed after the 

 third week. The only June record that I have found of the Right Whale in our waters, is 

 of a large cow with her calf, both of which were killed off Cape Cod early in the first week of 

 June, 1888. 



It is without the scope of the present paper to trace the northward course of the Right 

 Whales after they have left our coasts in May. Suffice it to say that they seek the waters 

 off the Grand Banks and thence northeasterly, even to Iceland. They appear to avoid the 

 Newfoundland waters, and are not taken at the whaling stations there. They were formerly 

 common in Iceland waters and according to Buchet (1895) and Collett (1909) they have again 

 appeared in small numbers of recent years, usually in June and July. It should be noted, how- 

 ever, that those animals in the seas east of Iceland are quite likely the same that winter on 

 the coasts of southern Europe. They were formerly common in the vicinity of the North Cape 

 of Norway, whence the name 'Nordkaper,' applied by the whalers of those seas. 



The reason of this seasonal migration of the Right Whale is not yet known. It is unlikely 



