THE MIGRATIONS OF MAMMALS. 249 



guidance of a few males, traverse the ocean by definite routes and 

 at definite times, some keeping to the open sea, others making their 

 way along the coasts. Storms may force them to change their 

 route, or delay in the appearance of the animals on which they feed, 

 whose occurrence and disappearance is obviously the chief cause 

 of their migration, may to some extent influence their course and 

 the time of their visiting certain spots; but, as a general rule, their 

 migrations are so systematic that on northern and southern coasts 

 people look for the arrival of the whale on a particular day, and 

 place watches so that they may be able to begin the long-desired 

 chase without loss of time. Whales, which are recognized by the 

 dwellers on the coast by some mark, such as mutilated fins, and 

 which have been several times pursued in vain, have been known to 

 appear several years in succession at the same time and at the same 

 place; and the chase after these most valuable and therefore increas- 

 ingly persecuted animals takes place with the same regularity as 

 do hare-hunts on land, though at any other time of the year it 

 would be vain to look for them. "After Twelfth Day," says old 

 Pontoppidan, "the Norwegians watch from all the hills for the 

 whale, whose arrival is announced by the herring." First appears 

 the killer, then, three or four days, or at the most a fortnight later, 

 the rorqual, though, apparently, one comes from Davis Straits and 

 the other from Greenland. On the south coasts of the Faroe Islands, 

 and especially in the Qualbenfjord, from three to six bottle-nose 

 whales still appear every year about Michaelmas, as they did a 

 hundred and ninety years ago. In a Scottish bay there appeared 

 twenty years in succession a rorqual, which was generally known 

 by the name of " HoUie Pyke ", and was pursued every year and 

 finally captured. On the coast of Iceland single whales choose the 

 same bays for a temporary sojourn every year in the same months, 

 and even weeks, so that the inhabitants have got to know them 

 individually, and have given them special names. Certain well- 

 known mother- whales visit the same bays every year to bring forth 

 their young, and they themselves are spared, but they have to 

 purchase their own lives, dearly enough, at the cost of that of their 

 young ones, which are regularly taken captive. It is very unusual 



