24 ESCHRICHT AND REINHARDT 



place ; and that, during the first twenty or thirty years, they had only caught the species of 

 whale repairing there in summer time. Perhaps the Greenland whale may never have done 

 anything fux'ther than just roam down along the coast of Labi'ador to the north side of 

 Newfoundland and into the Belle Isle Strait. Something of the kind might seem to be implied 

 by the name, " Grand Bay" whale, given to it, according to Edge and Baffin, by the Basques ; 

 for by Grand Bay they understood the south-western, somewhat broader, part of the Belle Isle 

 Strait ; and as the bays on the south side of Newfoundland, and especially Placentia Bay, as 

 well as the Belle Isle Strait, from the very earliest time, Avheu the trade on " les Terresneuves" 

 commenced, were fishing-places frequented by great numbers of vessels, it would seem 

 strange, indeed, that the Basques should have denominated the whale by the name of that single 

 bay, had they not wanted by this name to point out the fact that it was not found everywhere 

 in the sea round Newfoundland, but only appeared along the north coast and in the strait 

 mentioned. 



If from Baffin's Bay and Davis Strait we now turn to the sea between Greenland and 

 Spitzbergen, it must be considered as a matter of fact that the right-whales which were to be 

 found here at the beginning of every summer, the " eilandsche Walvissch," or " Westys-Yissch," 

 of the ancient Dutch whalers, were of the same kind as the whale of Davis Strait. Their way 

 of living was in every respect the same as that of the latter ; for the Spitzbergen whale also, has, 

 ever since the beginning of the whale-fishing at that place, early in the seventeenth century, 

 shown exactly the same inclination to stay near and among the ice, the same peaceable and 

 indolent natural disposition, and the same propensity to a migratory life. Besides, the more 

 ancient descriptions of the Spitzbergen whale agree very well with the whale from Davis Strait, 

 and those parts of the skeleton, especially of the head, Avhicli we have received of the former are 

 also quite like the same parts of the skeletons sent from the west coast of Greenland which will 

 hereafter become the objects of our researches. Einally, it has been proved tbat it is the same whale 

 that is found in Baffin's Bay and near Spitzbergen by those instances, often repeated, in which 

 whales that have been unsuccessfully harpooned in Davis Strait have been killed near 

 Spitzbergen or vice versa. Besides the instances of this mentioned by Scoresby,^ two other 

 such cases, from the year 1805, might be quoted. In one of these a whale was first unsuccess- 

 fiiUy harpooned by Captain Franks, in Davis Strait, but, somewhat later in the same year, 

 killed near Spitzbergen, by his son, who found his father's harpoon still sticking in it; in 

 another case. Captain Sadler caught a whale in the last-named place in which the harpoon of an 

 Esquimaux was fixed." A third instance, which, if it can be completely depended upon, is 

 deserving of particular mention, has been given by Paul Egede, namely, that the commander of 

 a whahng expedition (1787) in Davis Strait found a whale drifting with a harpoon sticking in it, 

 which he recognised as that of his brother, and which, on his return, he learned had been put into 

 the whale near Spitzbergen only two days before he had found it dead in Davis Strait.^ 



A different question is, the possibility of several species having been confounded under the 

 common appellation of Greenland whale ; whether in the sea near Spitzbergen, besides the right- 

 whale, also commonly found in Davis Strait and Baffin's Bay, one or even several other species 



^ 'Account,' i, pp. 10, 11. 



" ' Quarterly Eeview,' vol. xviii, London, 1818, p. 212. 



^ Paul Egede, ' Efterretninger om Gronland,' Kbhvn. 1788, s. 122, Anmærkn. 



