166 NEWFOUNDLAND 



Placentia Bay. As a rule, in the month of June, the " krll " 

 move out from Cape St. Mary to the Grand Banks, where 

 the whales scatter and feed about over a large area, and do 

 not return to the Newfoundland coast until September and 

 October. They do not go north along the Newfoundland 

 east coast, or along the Labrador. It is still uncertain whether 

 these whales, which return in September, are the same as 

 those which left the south coast in June, or fresh comers from 

 the south. It is also uncertain where this herd of whales 

 winter, but the Norwegian captains, who are the best judges 

 on these matters, are all inclined to think that they do not 

 go very far, but winter about the Grand Banks,^ some two 

 hundred miles off south-east Newfoundland, and scattered 

 over a large area. Certainly, many solitary Blue Whales 

 have been seen by ships in this range during the winter 

 months. 



The range of the Blue Whale in the eastern Atlantic may 

 be briefly summed up as follows. They appear in large 

 numbers in early May off the west coast of the Hebrides, 

 where one factory in Harris killed no less than forty-two in 

 1905. They then strike due north, passing the Faroes, 

 where a few are killed ; and make their summer home in 

 the seas off Finmark, Spitzbergen, the White Sea, and the 

 north-east coast of Iceland. Captain Larsen, who has made 

 five trips to East Greenland in summer, has also seen many 

 there. In October all these Blue Whales strike due south, 

 going at full-speed, holding out for the main Atlantic, into 

 which they disappear for the winter. 



In the water the Blue Whale, doubtless owing to its vast 

 bulk, is somewhat slow and stately in its movements. It 



' I saw two individuals about two hundred miles east of St. John's in 

 November 1906. 



