REDISCOVERING AN EXTINCT WHALE 



fields, until finally they ceased altogether and passed 

 up and down the coast on their annual migrations far 

 out at sea where they were safe from the deadly har- 

 poons of the hunters. 



But the whales, for all their astuteness, were not 

 free from persecution. During the winter, when they 

 came into the shallow water of the California lagoons 

 to bring forth their young, the American whaling 

 ships came also, and the animals, held by mother love, 

 were killed by hundreds. 



However, they were not always slaughtered with- 

 out making a fight to save their babies, and because 

 they frequently wrecked the boats and killed the crews 

 they gained the title of "devilfish," and as such are 

 generally known throughout the Pacific rather than 

 by the more formal name of California gray whale, 

 which was bestowed upon them in 1868 by Professor 

 Cope. 



The American fishery did not last long for continual 

 slaughter on their breeding grounds soon so depleted 

 the numbers of the gray whales that the hunt was no 

 longer profitable, and the shore stations which had 

 been established at various points along the coast fin- 

 ally ceased operations altogether. For over twenty 

 years the species had been lost to science and natural- 

 ists believed it to be extinct. 



In 1910, while in Japan, I learned from the whaling 

 company of the existence of an animal known as the 

 koku kitjira, or "devilfish," which formed the basis of 

 their winter fishery upon the southeastern coast of 

 Korea. 



187 



