20 THE WHALES AND PORPOISES. 



into canes and other articles of ornament. The supply in this country is chiefly imported from 

 Denmark. In New York City in 1880 a good tusk sold for ; 



10. THE GREENLAND, BOWHEAD, OR POLAR WHALE. 



Confusion between the Bowhead and the Eight Whale. — Much uncertainty has 

 resulted from the manner in which the Bowhead of the arctic regions has been confused with the 

 right whales of tlie adjoining temperate seas. Murray, writing in 1866," made no attempt to clear 

 up the subject; previous writers were confused as well as vague, and it is only in Scammon's 

 writings that a clear account of the distribution and habits of the species is to be found. The 

 materials for the following biographical sketch are derived in the main from the statements of this 

 author, and quotation marks are omitted only because the facts are arranged in a new sequence.^ 



Distribution. — The range of the true Balcena mysticetus extends west from Nova Zembla to 

 the coast of Eastern Siberia. Its northern limits yet remain undefined: it is seldom seen in Bering 

 Sea south of the fifty-fifth parallel, which is about the southern extent of the winter ice, though in 

 the Sea of Okhotsk it ranges south to the parallel of 54°. It was formerly found to the north of 

 Spitzbergen, but it has been shown by Eschricht and Eeinhardt that its habitat is, and always has 

 been, confined to the polar seas, and that it has no claim to a place in the fauna of Europe.' 



Everything tends to prove that the Bowhead is truly an " ice-whale," for its home is among 

 the scattered floes or about the borders of the ice-fields or barriers. It is true that these animals 

 are pursued in the open water during the summer months, but in no instance has their capture 

 been recorded south of where winter ice-flelds are occasionally met with. In the Okhotsk Sea they 

 are found throughout the season after the ice disappears, nevertheless they remain around the floes 

 till these are dispelled by the summer sun, and they are found in tbe same localities after the 

 surface of the water has again become congealed in winter. 



' Murray : Geographical Distribntion of Mammals, pp. 207-208. 



^In "A Digression concerning Whaling," written in 1748, published in Douglass' North America, Boston and 

 London, 1755, vol. i, p. 56, is the earliest discrimination I have met with of the Bowhead and the Right Whale of the 

 extra-polar regions. Some interesting facts are given : 



"The New-England whalers distinguish 10 or 12 different species of the whale-kind ; the most beneficialis the 

 black whale, whale-bone whale, or true whale, as they call it ; in Davis's-straits in N. lat. 70 D. and upwards they are 

 very large, some may yield 150 puncheons being 400 to 500 barrels oil, and bone of 1-i feet and upwards ; thej are a 

 heavy loggy fish, and do not fight, as the New-England whalers express it, they are easily struck and fastened, but 

 not above one third of them are recovered ; by sinking and bewildering themselves under the ice, two thirds of them 

 are lost irrecoverably; the whalebone whales killed upon the coast of New-England, Terra de Labradore, and entrance 

 of Davis's-straits, are smaller, do yield not exceeding 120 to 130 barrels oil, and 9 feet bone 140 lb. wt. ; they axe wilder 

 more agile and do fight. 



"The New England whalers reckon so many ct. wt. bone, as bone is feet long ; for instance, 7 foot bone gives 700 

 wt. bone : New England bone scarce ever exceeds 9 feet ; and 100 barrels oil is supposed to yield 1000 wt. of bone ; 

 whales killed in deep water, if they sink, never rise again." 



A few paragraphs below, however, he proceeds to mix the subject up again, speaking of the Finback, when it is 

 quite evident that the Whale he has in mind is not the right- whale but the " Eight Whale." 



"The fin-back, beside two small side-fins, has a large fin upon his back, may yield 50 to 60 barrels oil, his bone 

 is brittle, of little or no use, he swims swifter, and is very wild when struck. The Berraudians some years catch 20 of 

 these whales, not in sloops, but in whale-boats from Ihe shore as formerly at Cape-Cod. The governor of Bermudas 

 has a perquisite of 10£. out of each old whale. 



"Whales are gregarious," he continues, " and great travellers or passengers; in the autumn they go south, in 

 the spring they return northward. They copulate like neat cattle, but the female in a supine posture. The true or 

 whalebone whale's swallow is not much bigger than that of an ox, feeds upon small flsh and sea insects that keep in 

 sholes, has only one small fin each side of his head of no great use to him in swimming, but with a large horizontal 

 tail he sculs himself in the water. The North Cape (in N. Lat. 72 D. in Europe) whales, are of the same small kind 

 as are the New-Engl.ind, and entrance of Davis's-straits : here we may again observe, that the high European latitudes 

 are not so cold as the same American latitudes, because 72 D. is tbe proper N. Lat. in Davis's-straits for the large 

 whales, and the Dutch fish for them longside of fields or large islands of ice, they use long warps, not drudges as in 

 New-England." 



'EscHRiCHT & Eeinhardt: Om Nordhvaleu, 1861. 



