SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRITISH SEAS. 73 



is therefore avoided by the whalers, as more dangerous than profitable, and 

 if struck at all, it is most likely a case of mistaken identity. From the port 

 of Vadso, however, the capture of this, and the species immediately preceding 

 and following, is now successfully effected by means of an explosive shell or 

 harpoon, which kills them at once. This fishery was established about the 

 year 1865, by Herr Svend Foyn, from Tonsberg, and is still MQ.ry success- 

 fully prosecuted, as many as 50 Whales being obtained each summer ; they 

 are towed into Vadso, where the blubber is refined and the carcase made into 

 manure. 



The habitat of the Common Rorqual is the temperate Northern seas, from 

 the Mediterranean, which it sometimes enters, to the 70° north latitude, and 

 sometimes even farther north still. Nordenskibld, in the ' CEolus,' last saw 

 Finners on the iSth May, 1S61, in lat. 75^45', the temperature of the water 

 being between 2'50'' and 3'8^ C, and they were not again seen until the 

 return of the expedition in September, in "j^P north latitude, the temperature 

 of the water being then about 3'S^' C. He remarks, "It is probable that 

 ' Finners ' never live in colder water than this, and that the northern limit of 

 their distribution coincides with sea of this temperature. It has to be kept 

 in view, however, that this boundary line lies several degrees further to the 

 north in summer than in winter."* 



The range of this group is very great, and, according to Andrew Murray, 

 it would appear that one or more of the Bala;nopterid£e is found over the 

 whole world, although it is by no means certain that any particular species 

 has a very wide geographical range. Megaptera loiigimana, which occurs in 

 the North Sea, was also supposed to have been met with at the Cape, but Dr. 

 Gray has pointed out differences in the cervical vertebrae of an individual from 

 that locality, which he considers constitute distinct specific characters ; on the 



* 'Arctic Voyages of Aclulf Erik Nordenskiold,' 1S5S-1S79, pp. 51-2. 



I 



