322 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Capt. Sorensen attributes this falling off partly to storms and 

 bad weather which the whalers met with in June and July, but 

 also to the fact "that whales are becoming more and more scarce. 

 What is the reason of this is not easy to say — whether it is owing 

 to persecution or other causes. For my own part, I believe that 

 the action of the current in the water may have a great influence. 

 There have, for instance, been seen this year great quantities of 

 whales in the tract between Bear Island and Spitzbergen, and 

 this has led me to the belief that the Gulf-stream, which carries 

 with it the whales' 'Aat,' or food, — 'Kril' (= Thysanopoda 

 inermis), has taken a new northerly course. I also ground this 

 conclusion on the range of temperature of the water off the coast 

 of Finmarken, together also with the fact that the Blue Whales' 

 food — the ' Kril ' — does not seem to be in the same quantity, by 

 a long way, as formerly." 



Capt. Horn (Yeretiki) also refers to the bad weather: — " The 

 season was very bad ; we had mostly E. and N.E. wind, cold and 

 foggy even to the last." Of the sixteen Common Rorquals 

 captured by his vessels, he says, " All were of the variety known 

 as 'Langror,'* not one real Fin. From the first two Langror 

 I had 144 petroleum barrels oil." His total amount (883 barrels) 

 gave an average of 42 barrels per whale. He has started the manu- 

 facture of glue, the produce of which, he reports, is excellent. 



Capt. Hoff (Jarfjord) writes: — "The whaling for the year 

 1889 has, in the whole result, been bad. The Common Rorquals, 

 to the eastward of the North Cape, kept for the most part far off to 

 sea, and much scattered, and only during the space of a fortnight, 

 about midsummer, were there taken a certain number of Common 

 Rorquals round Vardo and to the eastwards : during all the rest 

 of the season the whaling, in the main, passed by from North 

 Cape eastwards beyond Tanafjordfor the boats stationed in East 

 Finmarken. The Blue Whales began to show themselves in 

 June, but only singly, and were difficult to approach. Later, 

 sundry Blue Whales journeyed along the Russian coast, to the 

 eastward of Kildin, but bad weather and fog almost entirely put 

 a stop to all whaling. Most of the whalers turned homewards 

 earlier than usual; we returned from Jarfjord the 30th August." 



* Literally, long reed; just as the English word Rorqual is simply 

 Jlor-lcval, Finmarken for Eor-hval = Heed Whale. 



