

THE ZOOLOGIST. 



m 



THIRD SERIES. 



Vol.XIL] JUNE, 1888. [No. J 38. 



THE FINWBALE FISHERY OFF THE LAPLAND COAST. 

 Br Alfred Heneagk Cocks, M.A., F.Z.S. 



The Finwhaling off the Lapland coasts during 1887 produced 

 one hundred whales less than the total of the previous year. 

 There was a diminution of two in the number of companies 

 engaged in the last season's fishery, and seven vessels. The 

 number of whales per vessel, therefore, was greater (by two and 

 a fraction each) last season than in the previous year. 



I have to thank several of the Managers for again sending me 

 returns of their doings, and Capt. G. Sorensen (late Manager of 

 the Haabet Company, now Harbour-master at Vardo) for a list 

 of the numbers killed by most of the Companies; but I was 

 prevented (by a somewhat severe accident) from visiting any of 

 the factories last year, and there are consequently some un- 

 avoidable gaps in the returns. These gaps I have ventured to 

 fill up, in the list at the end of this paper, by guess-work, so as 

 to endeavour to arrive at the approximate number of each species 

 obtained. These guesses are distinguished by the use of Roman 

 figures, so that no one is bound to accept them who considers this 

 too imaginative a method of arriving at statistics. I think, how- 

 ever, that the totals so obtained must be accurate enough to allow 

 of the deduction that the take of Blue and Common Rorquals 

 numbered little over two-thirds, and that of Humpbacks not 

 much over one-third of the totals in 1886, while the number of 

 Rudolphi's Rorquals killed was nearly six times the total of 1880. 



ZOOLOGIST. — JUNE, 1888. R 



