42 MAMMALIA. 



it with these terrible pincers enormous pieces of integument and 

 muscles. According to the same author, the wounded Whale, 

 having lost a quantity of blood, worn out with fatigue, can now 

 be attacked by Whiite Bears — voracious and formidable animals, 

 which hunger renders still more daring. "When the Whale is 

 dead its unmense floating carcass becomes an easy prey to the 

 Dog-fish, the sea-birds, and the "\^Tiite or Polar Bears. 



We must further mention, among the enemies of the Whale, cer- 

 tain mollusks and crustaceans, which adhere to its skin and multiply 

 on it as on a rock. Thus fixed on the back of the Whale these 

 little animals become the prey of sea-birds, which come and satisfy 

 their taste or their hunger on the back of the gigantic Cetacean, 

 which is of advantage to it, however, in disembarrassing it of such 

 hosts of parasites. 



^^Tiales frequent only the cold seas. It has been affirmed that 

 they have never been met with in the torrid zone, and that the 

 equator is for them an impassable barrier. 



The principal j)oints with which they are met with in the north 

 are Greenland, Spitzbergen, Davis's Straits, Behring's Straits, the 

 Sea of Okhotsk, Japan, the north-west coast of America, &c. In 

 the southern hemisphere one may say that they are found ia all 

 latitudes, from the thirty-fourth or thirty-fifth degree to the polar 

 circle. We will mention as the principal points the western and 

 southern coasts of Africa, the Islands of Tristan d'Acunha, the 

 Ca^je of Good Hope, the islands Mauritius, Madagascar, St. Paul, 

 Amsterdam ; Australia, New Zealand, Chili, Cape Horn, the Falk- 

 land Islands, the coast of Brazil, &c.* 



It is impossible, however, to point out exactly the principal 

 points where, at any given time. Whales are su.re to be found. 

 For reasons Avhich are imknown, or only guessed at, it emigrates 

 suddenly from one of the maritime regions where it had been up 

 to that time. They call by the name of fisliing-groiinds those 

 latitudes in which, at certain periods of the year, the Whale is to 

 be met with in greater or less numbei's. These periods are called 

 the fishing seasons. They are determined by the temperature 

 and by the presence of the "Whale's food, of that hoete which we 

 spoke about before. 



* The geographical range of the Rorquals is here confomidcd with that of the 

 Bight Whales.— Ed. 



