254 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



together. Scoresby (1820, vol. 1, p. 479) also agrees that its speed does not exceed twelve 

 miles an hour. 



So far as known the Blue Whale does not leap out of water. 



Longevity. 



The normal duration of life is unknown for any of the Cetacea. Sibbald, in his Phalaino- 

 logia describes a Sulphurbottom cast ashore in 1692 in the Firth of Forth, Scotland, which had 

 been known to the fishermen thereabout "for twenty years, in its pursuits after the herring, 

 and termed by them Hollie Pike, in consequence of the dorsal fin having been perforated by 

 a bullet." Cuvier estimated the age attained by some of the larger species of Cetacea at a 

 thousand years or more, but this was mere guesswork, and the basis of his estimate we now 

 know to be quite inadequate. 



Food. 



The Blue Whale is not known to feed on fish, but appears to subsist largely, if not entirely, 

 on minute crustaceans which it engulfs in great quantities and sieves out from the water by 

 means of the matted bristles of the whalebone. The small schizopod Thysanoessa inermis 

 seems to form the favorite item of diet, and the stomachs of those I examined at Newfound- 

 land were packed with these alone. Other observers have seen the same thing. Collett records 

 from 300 to 400 liters (twelve bushels or more) of these crustaceans in stomachs of this whale. 

 A second species of minute crustacean Temora longicornis known to the fishermen as 

 'swamps' --is also found in the stomach of the Blue Whale on the Newfoundland coast, ac- 

 cording to Dr. L. Rissmiiller (Millais, 1906). Van Beneden considers that Holboell is undoubt- 

 % edly mistaken in believing that capelin are eaten by the Blue Whale, and in this he is probably 

 correct. 



Breeding Habits. 



As with other whales, very little is definitely known of the life of this large species. Guld- 

 berg says that mating takes place in summer on the coasts of Finmark and Lapland. He speaks 

 of observing the act of copulation on July 15, 1883, when a male and a female lay on their sides 

 at the surface, gently approached each other and turned belly to belly. Gestation is supposed 

 to be about a year in duration, and the young are born probably in the summer following the 

 mating. A single young at a birth is the rule among Cetacea, but Captain David Gray, an 

 English whaler, is reported to have seen a Blue Whale with two young ones in north latitude 

 79 15'. J. A. Harvie-Brown 1 records a female of sixty feet, containing twin foetuses, that was 



1 Harvie-Brown, J. A. Ann. Scottish Nat. Hist., 1905, p. 73. 



