496 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



and in the Okhotsk Sea. Scammon (1874, pi. 5) has pictured 

 them "emerging between scattered floes, and even forcing 

 themselves through the field of ice, rising midway above the 

 surface, and blowing in the same attitude in which they are 

 frequently seen in the southern lagoons." With the coming of 

 autumn they start migrating southward again. At the whaling 

 station in southeastern Korea, Ulsan, Dr. Andrews found them 

 beginning to appear on their southward passage, about the end 

 of November. "Single pregnant females come first and a 

 little later both males and females are seen but the latter con- 

 siderably outnumber the former. About January 1, schools of 

 from ten to fifteen males, with perhaps one or two females, 

 appear, the female always leading. From the 7th to the 25th 

 of January, when the migration is completed, only males are 

 present, the females all having passed." The young are prob- 

 ably born among the islands at the extreme southern end of 

 the Korean Peninsula. On their passage northward, these 

 whales arrive at Ulsan about the middle of March and by the 

 middle of May have all passed northward. On the American 

 side a corresponding migration takes place, but it is not known 

 whether the herds of the opposite coasts mingle in the northern 

 waters. During October and November they appear off the 

 coasts of Oregon and northern California and from November 

 till February are to be found wintering off the coasts of southern 

 and Lower California, where the young are born in the early 

 part of the year. According to Scammon the bearing season is 

 December to March, and the young are brought forth in quiet 

 lagoons, while the males remain outside offshore. In May or 

 somewhat earlier the whales are passing north again, accom- 

 panied by the young. 



From an economic standpoint this species seems to have been 

 of some importance in earlier days and was killed with harpoons 

 from small boats, beginning about 1846. Scammon, writing of 

 his experiences in the fifties, tells that the boats' crews pursued 

 these whales in the shallow lagoons of southern California 

 where often the females were very close inshore. Having once 

 got "fast" with a harpoon, the officer in charge went forward 

 in an endeavor to discharge a bomb lance, which, if it did not 

 kill the whale at once, usually paralyzed it sufficiently to allow 

 the boat to come up and lance it. At other times the whalers 

 lay in wait for the gray whales on their passage offshore along 



