84 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



vessel, and in the last 13,382, showing an increased yield instead 

 of a falling off, as might have been expected. In the first period, 

 too, many of the vessels made second, and some even third trips. 

 In spite of the number killed by man and by natural causes, a 

 goodly residue must escape annually (sometimes when the season 

 is unfavourable to the sealers a large proportion) to continue the 

 species, notwithstanding all the dangers to which they are liable. 



Mr. Thorburn has been kind enough to obtain for me the 

 following information with regard to the doings of the Cabot 

 Whale-fishing Company, which is useful as indicating the seasonal 

 movements of the cetaceans named : — 



The ' Cabot ' left St. John's on Nov. 1st, 1899, for Hermitage 

 Bay, and commenced fishing in that neighbourhood on Dec. 1st. 

 She killed five ** Sulphur-bottoms " before the end of the year ; 

 in January she got four others, and in February three ; in March 

 seven, and in April five ; in May seventeen. In April she killed 

 her first " Humpback," and in May five others, as well as four 

 "Finbacks" — in all, fifty -one Whales. When this information 

 was received she was on the point of leaving her winter fishing- 

 ground, and going north, probably to Green Bay, where during 

 the summer the last two species mentioned above are found. The 

 fifty-one Whales yielded 250 tuns of oil, which is this year worth 

 £,'10 per tun, and the seven Sulphur-bottoms about a ton of 

 whalebone over one foot long, which is known as payable bone, 

 but is of poor quality. 



Just twenty years having passed since I contributed the first 

 of these annual notes on the Seal and Whale Fishery to the 

 'Proceedings' of the Glasgow Natural History Society (the nine- 

 teen which have followed are in the consecutive volumes of ' The 

 Zoologist'), and great changes having taken place in that time, 

 especially in the Whale-fishery, to which we have now to refer, it 

 may not be amiss to contrast the season of 1881 with that which 

 has just passed ; and, as the condition of the ice to a very large 

 extent rules the success or otherwise of both industries, more 

 especially that of the Whale-fishery, I shall first refer to the great 

 contrast which exists in that respect between the two periods. 



The year 1881 was as remarkable for what is known as a 



