R. BROWN ON THE CETACEA OF GREENLAND. 79 



The Greenland Shark (^Scymnus \_L(Bmargus~\ horealis^ Fl.), 

 though it gorges itself with the dead Whale, does not appear to 

 trouble it during life. Martens' most circumstantial account of the 

 fight between the Whale and Swordlish seems to have originated in 

 a misconception, this name being applied by seamen not only to the 

 Scombroid fish (^Xiphias), but also to the Orca, which, as is well 

 known, fights furiously with the Right Whale. The Whale must 

 attain a great age, nor does it seem to be troubled with many 

 diseases. Whales which are found floating dead are almost 

 always found to have been wounded. They are often killed with 

 harpoon-blades imbedded deep in the blubber ; and some of the 

 marks on them have been proved to be the remains of fights of 

 a very ancient date in which the Whale has come off victor. 



(S) Geographical distribution and migrations. — The geo- 

 graphical distribution and migration of the Whale on the coast of 

 Danish Greenland has been fully discussed by Eschricht and 

 Reinhardt,* and in the Spitzbergen sea by Scoresby ;f so that I 

 confine what few remarks I have to make on this subject to its 

 range along the northern shores of Greenland and the western 

 shores of Davis Strait and Bafiin's Bay, where the whalers chase 

 it. They appear on the coast of Danish Greenland early in May, 

 but are not nearly so plentiful as formerly, when the Davis-Strait 

 whaler generally pursued his business on this portion of the 

 coast ; but they are now so few that they have generally gone 

 north before the arrival of those ships which have first proceeded 

 to the Spitzbergen sealing. It is rarely found on the Greenland 

 coast south of Q5>°, or north of 73° ; indeed I have only heard of 

 one instance in which it has been seen as far north as the Duck 

 Islands near the entrance of Melville Bay, and even for a consider- 

 able distance south of that it can only be looked upon as an occa- 

 sional straggler. However, after crossing to the western shores 

 of Davis Strait, it occasionally wanders as far north as the upper 

 reaches of Baffin's Bay. The great body, however, leave the 

 coast of Greenland in June, crossing by the " middle ice," in the 

 latitude of Svarte Huk (Black Hook), in about lat. 71° 30' N. 

 The whaler presses with all speed north through Melville Bay to 

 the upper waters of Bafiin's Bay, and across to the vicinity of 

 Lancaster Sound. If there is land-ice in Baffin's Bay at the time 

 they arrive (about the end of July), there are generally some 

 Whales up that Sound and Barrow's Inlet ; but they accumulate 

 in greatest numbers in the neighbourhood of Pond's Bay, and 

 even up Eclipse Sound, the continuation of the so-called Pond's 

 Bay, which is in reality an extensive unexplored sound opening 

 away into the intricacies of the Arctic archipelago. The Whales 

 continue '' running " here until the end of June, and remain until 

 about the end of August or beginning of September. The 

 whalers think that if they can reach Pond's Bay by the beginning 



* Ray Soc. Mem. Get. 



f " Arctic Regions," " Voyage to Greenland," and " Memoirs of the Wer- 

 nerian Society of Edinburgh" (1811), vol. i. p. 578. 



