18G8.] OF THE GREENLAND SEAS. 543 



with such force as to stun them for the time being, and before they 

 recovered were drowned ; the Whale's nose was in nearly every in- 

 stance covered with the mud of the bottom. This diving to the 

 bottom is a favourite feat of young Whales ; and accordingly these 

 frisky individuals are more difficult to capture than the adult ones 

 of a more staid temperament. All species of Cetacea seem to pass a 

 considerable portion of their time asleep on the surface of the water, 

 and in this position they are often struck. The Right Whale always 

 keeps near the land-floes of ice ; and its migrations north and west 

 seem to be due to this habit*. 



After man, the chief enemy of the Whale is Orca gladiator, the 

 most savage of all the Cetacea, and the only one which feeds upon 

 other animals belonging to the order. The Thresher Shark ( Car- 

 charias vulpes), the very existence of which Scoresby seemed to 

 doubt, but which is now so comparatively well-known to naturalists 

 and seamen, is also an enemy of the Whale. It is doubtful, how- 

 ever, whether it attacks it in life, or only preys upon it after death. 

 The 'Advice' (Capt. A. Deuchars) once took a dead Whale along- 

 side which this Shark was attacking in dozens, the belly being per- 

 fectly riddled by themf- 



The Greenland Shark (Scymnus borealis, Flem.), though it gorges 

 itself with the dead Whale, does not appear to trouble it during 

 life. Martens's most circumstantial account of the fight between the 

 Whale and Swordfish seems to have originated in a misconception, 

 this name being applied by seamen not only to the Scombroid 

 fish {Xiphias), but also to the Orca, which, it is well-known, fights 

 furiously with the Right Whale. The Whale must attain a great 

 age, nor does it seem to be troubled with many diseases. Whales 

 wbich are found floating dead are almost always found to have been 

 wounded. They are often killed with harpoon-blades imbedded 

 deep in the blubber ; and some of them, from the marks on them, 

 have been proved to be the remains of fights of a very ancient date 

 in which the Whale has come off victor. 



(I) Geographical distribution and migrations. — The geographical 

 distribution and migration of the M^hale on the coast of Danish 

 Greenland has been fully discussed by Eschricht and Reinhardt J, 

 and in the Spitzbergen sea by Scoresby § ; so that I confine what h^ 

 remarks I have to make on this subject to its range along the 

 northern shores of Greenland and the western shores of Davis 

 Strait and Baffin's Bay, where the whalers chase it. They appear 

 on the coast of Danish Greenland early in May, but are not nearly 

 so plentiful as formerly, when the Davis-Strait whaler generally pur- 



* Capt. Wells in the Dundee whaling steamer 'Arctic' ran, in the summer of 

 1867, high up into Smith's Sound in search of Wliales. He found open water 

 and no Whales — a case of cause and effect (Sherard Osl)orn, Proc. Roy. Geogr. 

 Soc. vol. xii. p. 103, Feb. 10th, 1868). 



t The sailor» have a notion that the Shark does not bite out the pieces, but 

 cuts thera by means of its curved dorsal fin, and seizes them as they drop into 

 the water ! This belief is widely and firmly received. 



J Ray Soc. Mem. Cet. 



§ 'Arctic Regions,' ' Voyage to Greenland,' and 'Memoirs of the Wernerian 

 Society of Edinburgh' (,1811), vol. i. p. 578. 



