Experts should be employed to study carefully conditions in each locality in order that recommendations may be intelligent. I know of one government which actually declared a closed season upon whales, during which the animals could not be hunted, obviously to allow the females to bring forth their young. Since the fin whales breed irregularly throughout the year, such bungling attempts at legislation are worse than useless and serve only to expose the ignorance of those who make them.
In not a single country of the globe where shore whaling is being carried on today are there intelligent laws to insure for the future an industry which is yielding millions of dollars every year, or to save from extermination the animals which, of all others on the land or in the sea, have taken the most important place in the history of the world.
APPENDIX
I. CLASSIFICATION OF THE CETACEA
In order to make clear the relations to each other of the whales and porpoises I have given below a classification and brief diagnosis of the principal groups. The currently accepted subfamilies of the Physeteridæ and Platinistidæ have been omitted for the purpose of simplifying the classification.
Order Cetacea. Whales and Porpoises.
A. Suborder Mystacoceti. Whalebone Whales.
I. Family Balænidæ. Right and Fin Whales.
a. Subfamily Balæninæ. Right Whales.
Head long—skull much arched—whalebone long and very fine—no grooves on ventral surface—no dorsal fin—greatest length, 65 feet.