THE RIGHT WHALE AND BOWHEAD 



frequently taken by the shore whalers on the coasts 

 of Japan, Australia, and South America, and is much 

 less timid than the bowhead ; it is also much quicker 

 in its movements and is consequently a more danger- 

 ous whale to attack for the men who hunt in small 

 boats with a hand harpoon and lance. 



The bowhead, on the contrary, is exceedingly diffi- 

 cult to approach and very slow in its movements. It 

 is exclusively a whale of the northern hemisphere, 

 found only in the waters of the Arctic Ocean, Green- 

 land, Hudson's Bay, and the Bering and Okhotsk Seas. 



The finest bowhead grounds of today are those 

 north of Bering Strait ; as the ice breaks in the spring 

 the whales follo\v the coast eastward, past Point Bar- 

 row, Alaska, as far as Banks Land. In the fall they 

 again pass Point Barrow, going westward toward 

 \Yrangle Island, off the Siberian Coast. 



Until Arctic whaling ceased, the ships used to leave 

 San Francisco or Seattle in time to arrive at Point 

 Barrow when the ice had broken sufficiently to allow 

 them to smash their way through, and then cruise 

 about under sail or tie up to the floe-ice where they 

 could watch for whales from the masthead. The bow- 

 heads have such acute hearing and are so very timid 

 that if the vessels use steam the propellers would be 

 heard at a long distance and a whale would never be 

 seen. 



As soon as a whale is sighted, two or three small 

 boats are lowered and each endeavors to be the first 

 to reach the animal. The bowhead's blowholes are 

 situated on the summit of a prominent bunch and 



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