1868.] OF THE GREENLAND SEAS. 545 



or as 1 6 to 51) vary in almost every individual. The size of the head, 

 for instance, differs a little in almost all individuals ; and Scoresby 

 merely gave one-third the size of the body as the average, not as the 

 unvarying proportion. Whales of different ages keep a good deal 

 together : hence young Whales frequent the bays ; the old ones roam 

 in the vicinity of the "middle ice" of Davis Strait, and afterwards 

 come into the bays ; and those killed early in the year at Pond's Bay 

 are chiefly young animals. Hence the whaler uses the terms "middle- 

 icers," "rock-nosers," and " Pond's-Bay fish" to designate not a 

 separate species or even variety, but to express a geographical fact 

 and a zoological habit. According to the state of their cargo, the 

 industry of the captain, or the state of the weather, the Whalers 

 leave for home from the 1 st to the 20th of October, but rarely delay 

 their departure beyond the latter date. 



Where the Whale goes to in the winter is still unknown. It is 

 said that it leaves Davis Strait about? the month of November, and 

 produces young in the St. Lawrence River, between Quebec and 

 Camaroa, returning again in the spring to Davis Strait. At all events, 

 early in the year they are found on the coast of Labrador, where 

 the English whalers occasionally attack them ; but the ships arrive 

 generally too late, and the weather at that season is too tempestuous 

 to render the "South-west Fishing" very attractive. Later in the 

 year the ships enter Cumberland Sound in great numbers ; and 

 many of them (especially American and Peterhead vessels) now make 

 a regular practice of wintering there in order to attack the Whales in 

 early spring. It is said that early in September they enter Cum- 

 berland (Hogarth's) Sound in great numbers and remain until it is 

 completely frozen up, which, according to Eskimo account, is not 

 until the month of January. It is also affirmed by the natives that 

 Avhen they undertake long journeys over the ice in spring, when hunt- 

 ing for young Seals, they see Whales in great numbers at the edge of 

 the ice floe. They enter the Sound again in the spring and remain 

 until the heat of summer has entirely melted off the land-floes in 

 these comparatively southern latitudes. It thus appears that they 

 winter (and produce their young) all along the broken water off the 

 coast of the southern portions of Davis Strait, Hudson's Strait, 

 and Labrador. The ice remaining longer on the western than on 

 the eastern shore of Davis Strait, and thus impeding their northern 

 progress, they cross to the Greenland coast ; but as at that season 

 there is little land- ice south of 65°, they are rarely found south of 

 tliat latitude. They then remain here until the land-floes have 

 broken up, when they cross to the western shores of the Strait, 

 where we find them in July. I am strongly of belief that the 

 Whales of the Spilzbergen sea never, as a body, visit Davis Strait, 

 but winter somewhere in the open water at the southern edge of the 

 northern ice-fields. The Whales are being gradually driven further 

 north, and are now rarely found, even by their traces*, so far south 



* The recent visit of Whales to a particular locality can frequently be known by 

 a peculiar oiliness floating on the water, and (the whalers say, though I confess I 

 was never sensible of it) an unraistakeable odour characteristic of this Cetacean. 



