42 
MAMMALIA. 
it with, these terrible pincers enormous pieces of integument and 
muscles. According to the same author, the wounded Whale, 
haying lost a quantity of blood, worn out with fatigue, can now 
be attacked by White Bears — voracious and formidable animals, 
which hunger renders still more daring. When the Whale is 
dead its immense floating carcass becomes an easy prey to the 
Dog-fish, the sea-birds, and the White or Polar Bears. 
W e 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. 
Whales 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 points with which they are met with in the north 
are Greenland, Spitsbergen, 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 in 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 
Cape of Good Hope, the islands Mauritius, Madagascar, St. Paul, 
Amsterdam ; Australia, Hew 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 sure to be found. 
For reasons which are unknown, 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 fishing -grounds those 
latitudes in which, at certain periods of the year, the Whale is to 
be met with in greater or less numbers. These periods are called 
the fishing seasons. They are determined by the temperature 
and by the presence of the Whale’s food, of that boete which we 
spoke about before. 
* The geographical range of the Borquals is here confounded with that of the 
Bight Whales. — Ed. 
