1886.] MR. R. COLLETT ON BALEZNOPTERA BOREALIS. 245 
preserved in the University Museum at Christiania), and a foetus from 
the same locality, that the Finmark “ Sejhval ’’ is identical with 
B. borealis. 
Thus, whilst B. borealis, as has been stated, is a constant summer 
visitor on the coasts of West Finmark, where it has annually, 
although in varying numbers, occurred off Soréen, near Hammerfest, 
probably to gorge upon the ‘Aate,” or the shoals of Crustacea which 
constitute its food, it has, as mentioned above, only exceptionally 
visited East Finmark, and on the coast east of the North Cape 
only a few specimens had been caught, and not every year. 
It does not, however, appear to have been altogether unknown 
even on this part of the coast. During a stay in Finmark in 1878 
I received information that a shoal of 13 whales, of about 40 feet in 
length, had stranded in a bay of the Porsangerfjord to the east of 
the North Cape. I did not have an opportunity of visiting the 
place ; but as the baleen-plates of these Whales were described as 
being black, it seems very probable that they belonged to this 
species”. 
In the same month 5 similar small whales were stranded at Sorveer, 
near Hammerfest (where the above-mentioned factory had not then 
been established). Moreover, several whalers have informed me 
that this species visited the Varangerfjord-in 1879 and 1880, but 
was not caught; they also noticed that whenever this species came 
in, B. sibbaldi left the coast and went out to sea®*. 
During the past summer, 1885, the Sejhval (B. borealis) came 
quite unexpectediy under land along the whole coast of Finmark, not 
singly or solitarily, but in such large numbers that, during the whole 
summer, most of the whales caught both in West and East Fin- 
mark consisted of this species. Of the other species, B. sibbaldi, 
B. musculus, and Megaptera boops, which in former years had 
formed the majority, only a comparatively small number were 
caught’. 
Of B. borealis 724 specimens were caught by 18 companies 
stationed in Finmark, and 47 specimens by 3 companies, ou the 
Murman coast, making together a total of 771 specimens. 
In fact they were caught by all the companies along the whole 
1 “Sur lexistence d’une 4me espece du genre Balenoptera dans les mers 
septentrionales de l’Europe” (Bull. Acad. Roy. Belg. 3° sér. tome vii. no. 4, 
Ayril 1884). This paper is translated (with a few additions) in Journ. of Anat. 
and Phys. 1885, p. 293. 
2 Nyt Mag. f. Naturv. 27 B. p. 260 (1885). 
® Tt was therefore said this year in Finmark that as B. borealis was under 
land, B. sibbaldi would not come, and this presumption proved to a great 
extent correct. 2B. sibbaldi was this year almost absent from the Norwegian 
coast as compared with the preceding years; but it was more common further 
east, as 5 whalers on the Murman coast killed almost exactly the same number 
of that species as all the 31 Norwegian whalers did together. 
* [Of Megaptera boops rather more examples were caught than in any previous 
year; this does not necessarily show that they were more numerous than in 
other years, but, in the absence of the two larger species, they were hunted in 
preference to B. horealis, as yielding three times the quantity of oil.— A. H. C.] 
