it Ge California Gray Whale. 
slaughtered on any exclusive breeding grounds. Here their nurs- 
eries are limited to particularly favored places which are known and 
accessible to all who choose to murder them, and it is a little re- 
markable that the State of California has not, long since, by strin- 
gent laws protected them, at least in the nurseries within her bor- 
ders. If their capture were confined to the open waters of the 
ocean and to a reasonable distance from the mouth of the lagoons 
in which they breed, we might well hope to see them multiply 
rather than fade away to final extinction. Certain interests encour- 
aged the extinction of the vast herds of buffalo which once roamed 
over the plains and even the forests of our country, that the ranch- 
men might have better pasturage for their stock, but no interest can 
be promoted by the destruction of this whale while great interests 
would be subserved by its protection and increase. Other animals 
are protected which are of no practical value except as mere spec- 
tacles, while their existence involves a positive loss by the destruc- 
tion of vast numbers of food fishes. 
I might have stated before, that the California whale, though not 
the largest of the family, is of a good size, the largest measuring 
forty to fifty feet in length, though the average is considerably less 
than this. They are fairly robust in form and well covered with 
fat. They furnish no whalebone, but they produce from twenty to 
seventy barrels of oil, which, though not of the best quality, com- 
mands a good price in the market. 
Solitary individuals of several other species of whales are fre- 
quently taken at the shore stations along this coast. 
