10 ESCHRICHT AND REINHARDT 



antipodarim, Gray) near the shores of New Zealand (though now in very small numbers), we have 

 similar accounts, it being said that scarcely any but females enter the bays.^ The same seems to 

 have been the case with the whale which, in the last century, was eagerly pursued along the east 

 coast of North America, from Cape Cod to the Bermuda Islands. - 



We have, further, a similar statement to the effect that fin-whales annually enter certain 

 bays on the coast of Iceland with the greatest regularity, and it would not be difficult to add to 

 these other instances of a like description.^ 



It might, therefore, readily be supposed that the visits of the Greenland whales to the Danish 

 factories are also made for the purpose of breeding. In order to decide how far such a suppo- 

 sition is well founded, it will be first necessary to know at what season the whale gives birth to 

 its young ones, and on this point we have a statement of Scoresby, not, however, founded on his 

 own observation, pointing out the end of the summer as the time of sexual intercourse ; at 

 the same time, he presumes that it brings forth its young ones in February and March.* 



This, however, does not quite agree with the observations made in Greenland. According 

 to these, the intercourse takes place in January and February. Thus, it is reported from 

 Godhavn, in the year 17 SO, that two whales were discovered in copula on the 13th of February; 

 the administrator of the factory near Holsteinsborg states in his journal for the 3rd of January, 

 1819, that it was just then the time at which the sexual congress of the whales takes place, when 

 they are so fierce as not to allow of their being approached, and on the 18th of the same month 

 the same statement is repeated. Finally, Mr. Engholm, once the director of a factory, 

 informs us that he has frequently observed the same circumstance in January and February. 

 The time of bringing forth, too, does not seem to be so early in the year as stated by Scoresby. 

 The cub preserved in brine by Major Fasting, and presented by him to the Royal Museum, 

 about which we shall have to speak hereafter, was evidently only a few days old, and yet it had 

 been caught on the 6th of May, near Godhavn; and on the 29th of April, 1801, a whale was 

 caught at the same place, having in it a foetus fifteen feet long, and perfectly full grown. 

 Instances, however, of an earlier birth have been observed. Thus, on the 18th of March, 1807, 

 a whale was discovered with a new-born cub, near Dogs' Island, at the mouth of Disco Bay ; the 

 cub was killed, and found to be no bigger than a beluga {Delpldnus Leucas, Pall.), consequently 

 only a few days old. According to these observations the supposition seems to be well founded 

 that the time of bringing forth of whales is between the end of March and the beginning of May, 

 and is not, as Scoresby presumes, in February and March ; and the time of gestation seems 

 rather to be thirteen or fourteen months than eight or nine/ so that the female will bring forth 



^ DiefPenbach, G., ' Travels iu New Zealand,' vol. i, London, 1843, p. 44, seq. 



^ ' Philosophical Transactions,' vol. xxsiii (1724-25), No. 387, Paul Dudley, " An Essay upon 

 the Natural History of Whales," p. 256. 



^ According to the information -which Scoresby obtained from a South Sea whaler, the Bay of 

 Coquimbo, in Chili, was also during some years, in the beginning of this century, visited by 

 female right-whales desirous of bringing forth their young ones undisturbed (Ace. of the Arct. 

 Reg.,' ii, 530). 



* 'Ace. of the Arct. Reg.,' i, 470. " The sexual intercourse of whales is often observed about the 

 latter end of summer.". . . ." The time of their bringing forth, it is presumed, is in February or March." 



^ F. Debell Bennett, from the annual visits of the Cape right-whale to the bays on the south 

 coast of Africa, has ventured on a conclusion that the time of gestation of this species does not exceed 



