My chief employment was afloat, and according to my usual habit,
I found no amusement unless it was attended with danger; and this
propensity found ample gratification in the whale fishery, the season
for which was just approaching. The ferocity of the fish in these
southern latitudes appears to be increased, both from the heat of the
climate and the care of their young, for which reason it would seem
that the risk in taking them is greater than in the polar seas.
From what I am able to learn of the natural history of the whale, she
brings forth her young seldom more than one at a time in the northern
regions, after which, with the calf at her side, the mother seeks a
more genial climate, to bring it to maturity. They generally reach
Bermuda about the middle of March, where they remain but a few weeks,
after which they visit the West India Islands, then bear away to the
southward, and go round Cape Horn, returning to the polar seas by
the Aleutian Islands and Behring's Straits, which they reach in the
following summer; when the young whale, having acquired size and
strength in the southern latitudes, is enabled to contend with his
enemies in the north, and here also the dam meets the male again. From
my own experience and the inquiries I have been enabled to make, I am
tolerably certain that this is a correct statement of the migration of
these animals, the females annually making the tour of the two great
American continents, attended by their young.
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