ON THE GREENLAND RIGHT-WHALE. 5 



Fasting, but chiefly through numerous journals of the whale-fishery kept at the clifierent factories, 

 the use of which the Department for the Greenland Trade has been liberal enough to concede 

 to one of us. 



Although the Greenland whale regularly appears near the west coast of Greenland it 

 only visits a part of this extensive shore. Thus, it does not commonly appear to the south 

 of that part of the coast which is situated between the 66th and 65th degree. At this 

 place, or, more exactly, near the factory called Sukkertoppen (the Sugar-loaf, 65° 25' )\ 

 it does not appear every year, but, nevertheless, so often that at a place a little more northerly, 

 where this factory originally was situated (65° 38'), a whaling establishment had been founded, 

 the most southerly of all. This establishment was certainly given up a long time ago, but, 

 as far as it can be ascertained, this was not so much owing to the scarcity of the whales as to the 

 fact that the harpoon-lines were commonly torn on the hidden rocks abounding in that part of 

 the sea, thus causing the loss of the whales. Southwards of these limits the appearance of the 

 whale is only casual, and very rare, and, if we except one instance recorded by David Crantz," 

 that it once, in the spring of 1756, appeared in numbers off the factory of Godthaab, in 

 all other cases known to us, only a few individuals, especially young ones, have strayed 

 further to the south. Thus, on the 2nd of December, 1805, a young Greenland whale was 

 caught near the factory of Prederikshaab (62° 0'). In the year 1831 a young one was 

 discovered still further southwards, near Tiksaluk-Næs (61° 25'), and harpooned, though not 

 successfully; and finally, in the following year a young whale was observed in the same place, 

 and at a season most exti'aordinary, as the following observations will prove, viz., on the 

 23rd of July. 



Along the remaining part of the coast, on the contrary, northwards of the limits just indicated, 

 the whale appears annually, with great regularity, and enters the larger sounds or fiords, though 

 not every year in the same numbers ; but its stay is everywhere only periodical, limited to a 

 certain fixed season of the year, and of unequal duration at different places. Thus, the whale 

 appears near " Sukkertoppen" in the months of December, January, and February, and, it 

 seems, in greater numbers the more severe the winter is and the more the sea is filled with 

 floating ice. About one degree and a half more to the north near the factory of Holsteinsborg 

 (66° 56') its appearance is still nearly contemporaneous, although, indeed, even here, its stay is 

 somewhat longer. According to the statements in journals kept in this factory during the space 

 of thirty-six years, the whales make their appearance there in the first half of December, and in 

 rarer instances (more exactly, five times during the said thirty-six years) they have been observed 

 in the last days of November, and sometimes they have not come until the beginning of January. 

 They then remain along the coast and in the larger fiords, as in the Fiords of Amertlok and 

 Nepisene, till the month of March, when they again withdraw, and more frequently in the first 

 than in the latter half of the month. Sometimes, however, they have disappeared by February, 

 which was the case seven times during the period for which we have been able to obtain 

 authentic accounts. Very rarely whales have been observed as late as the beginning of i\.pril in 



^ V,''e follow the figures given hj Rink, in his work upon Greenland ("^ Gronland geogra- 

 phisk eg statistisk besla-evet,' Kjob, 1857), which differ a little from the earlier statements to be found 

 in Captain Graah's account of his expedition to East Greenland. 



" 'Historie von Gronland,' ii, 835. 



