122 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



this applies with equal force to the Seal Fishery). It is not 

 that the whales are exterminated, for Capt. Gray saw fourteen of 

 these animals in Greenland, and Capt. Adams is reported to have 

 seen seventeen in Davis Straits ; but, from long persecution, they 

 are simply unapproachable ; in addition to which in the past 

 season in Davis Straits the state of the ice was most unpropitious : 

 the frost was so severe in the spring that the " banks " were covered 

 with ice, rendering fishing impossible, and later on the " North 

 Water," which is usually free from ice, was frozen over, so that 

 the vessels, after passing through Melville Bay, had to cut their 

 way through young ice while performing their passage westward 

 to Lancaster Sound, which locality they did not reach till the 17th 

 July, when the summer fisbing was virtually over. In the fall 

 some fine "fish" were seen, but the season was so unfavourable, 

 in consequence of the state of the ice, and the whales so difficult 

 of approach, that it was impossible to secure them. 



It is the opinion of some of the whalemen that the fish which 

 were usually met with on their passage up Lancaster Sound, but 

 which for the last two seasons have apparently been absent, have 

 changed their route and gone round to Behring's Strait, where 

 the Americans are said to have been very successful. In the 

 Greenland Sea the ice was farther west last season than Capt. 

 Gray has known it for a period of at least ten years — a state of 

 things always accompanied by a scarcity of whales in the Green- 

 land North Water. 



According to Capt. Gray's observations, there seems to be a 

 curious periodicity in the movements of the Greenland ice ; it 

 appears to attain its maximum and minimum easterly extensions 

 in periods of about five years, so that about every tenth year may 

 be expected to prove an " east-ice year" and vice versa. Thus 

 the years 1847, '56, '66 and '67, '72 and '81 were east-ice years, 

 whereas in 1851, '68, '76 and '87 it receded to its fullest west. In 

 all the former years "south-east packs" occurred; that is, the 

 margin of the Greenland "west-ice" was so far east that it met 

 the ice lying south of Spitzbergen, which has its origin in Barent's 

 Sea, thus producing the so-called S.E. pack ; in the latter series 

 of years the swell of the ocean was felt almost to the shores of 

 Greenland. Of course due allowance must be made for exceptional 

 seasons and prevalent winds, and to this cause is probably due 

 the S.E. packs of the two consecutive years of 1866 and 1867. 



