_Right_ whale season off Tristan de Cuna is from November to March; and from January to March off Crozetts and Desolation Islands. Sperm whales are seldom seen near these islands. Right and sperm whaling off the south coast of New Holland, from October to March. In August, there is good ground for humpback whaling around the Rosemary Islands. Right whales are taken in the Japan Sea from February to October, but bowhead whales have never been seen there. Right whales are taken on the Kodiak ground from May to September; and from March, or as early as the sea is free from ice, until November, in the Ochotsk Sea. Right whales are found in the _southern_ part of the sea, and _bowheads_ are found in the _north_ and _western_ part of it at the same time. Bowhead whales are found and captured in the Arctic Ocean as soon as the ice breaks up, which is usually in June, until October.
The right whale is a cold water fish. It has been found by the examination of "records kept by different ships for hundreds of thousands of days, that the tropical regions of the ocean are to the _right_ whale as a sea of fire, through which he cannot pass, and into which he never enters."
It has also been supposed, that since the right whale does not cross the torrid zone, which to him is as a belt of liquid fire through which he cannot pass, therefore "the right whale of the northern hemisphere is a different animal from that of the southern."
It is, however, a well-established fact, "that the same kind of whale which is found off the shores of Greenland, in Baffin's Bay, etc., is also found in the North Pacific, and about Behring Straits; the inference therefore is, that there must be an opening for the passage of whales from one part of the Arctic Ocean to the other."
The following facts are taken from Maury's recent work on "The Physical Geography of the Sea," and cannot fail of being interesting to whalemen, and indeed to all classes of readers:--
"It is the custom among whalers to have their harpoons marked with date and name of the ship; and Dr. Scoresby, in his work on 'Arctic Voyages,' mentions several instances of whales that have been taken near Behring's Straits side with harpoons in them bearing the stamps of ships that were known to cruise on the Baffin's Bay side of the American continent; and as, in one or two instances, a very short time had elapsed between the date of capture in the Pacific and the date when the fish must have been struck on the Atlantic side, it was argued, therefore, that there was a _north-west_ passage by which the whales passed from one side to the other, since the stricken animal could not have had the harpoon in him long enough to admit of a passage around either Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope.