316 R. BROWN ON THE NATURE OF THE 



towing net did not capture a single Entomostracon^ Medusa^ or 

 Pteropod. I also found that this swarm of life ebbed and flowed 

 with the tide, and that the whalers used to remark that Whales 

 along shore were most frequently caught at the flow of the tide, 

 coming in with the banks of Whales' food. This mass of minute 

 life also ascends to the surface more in the calm Arctic nights when 

 the sun gets near the horizon during the long summer day. In 

 1861 I was personally acquainted with the death of thirty indivi- 

 duals of the "Right Whalebone Whale" {Balcena mysticetus^ L.), 

 and of this number fully three-fourths were killed between ten 

 o'clock p.m. and six o'clock a.m., having come on the " whaling 

 grounds "at that- period (from amongst the ice where they had 

 been taking their siesta), to feed upon the animals which were 

 then swarming on the surface, and these again feeding on the 

 Diatomacece found most abundantly at that time in the same 

 situations. I would however, have you to guard against the 

 supposition, enunciated freely enough in some compilations, that 

 the "Whales' food" migrates, and that the curious wanderings of 

 the Whale north, and again west and south, is due to its "pursuing 

 *^ its living " ; such is not the case. The " Whales' food " is found 

 all over the wandering ground of the Mysticete, and in all 

 probability the animal goes north in the summer in pursuance of 

 an instinct implanted in it to keep 'in the vicinity of the floating 

 ice-fields (now melted away in southern latitudes) ; and again it 

 goes west for the same purpose, and finally goes south at the 

 approach of winter — but where, no man knows. 



There are some other streaks of discoloured water in the Arctic 

 Sea known to the whalers by various not very euphonious names, 

 but these are merely local or accidental, and are also wholly 

 due to DiatomacecB, and with this notice may be passed over as of 

 little importance. I cannot, however, close this paper without 

 remarking how curiously the observations I have recorded afford 

 illustrations of representative species in different and widely 

 separated regions. In the Arctic Ocean the Balcena mysticetus 

 is the great subject of chase, and in the Antarctic and Southern 

 Seas the hardy whalemen pursue a closely allied species, Balcena 

 australis. The Northern Whale feeds upon Clio horealis and 

 Cetochilus septentrionalis ; the Southern Whale feeds upon their 

 representative species, Clio australis and Cetochilus australis, 

 which streak with crimson the Southern Ocean for many a league. 

 The Northern Sea is dyed dark with a Diatom on which the Clio 

 and Cetochilus live, and the warm waters of the Red Sea are 

 stained crimson with another Alga ; and I doubt not that, if the 

 Southern Seas were examined as carefully as the Northern have 

 been, it would be found that the Southern "Whales' food" lives 

 also on the Diatoms staining the waters of that Austral Ocean. 



I do not claim any very high credit for the facts narrated in the 

 foregoing paper, either general or specific, for really it is to the 

 exertions of the sailor-savant, William Scoresby, that the first light 

 which has led to the solution of the question is due, though the 

 state of science in his day would not admit of his seeing more 



