Roy Chapman Andrews of the American Museum prepared the first detailed description of a living specimen which he found at a Korean whaling station. At the time of his report the species had not been seen for many years and had been believed extinct. More recently Russian scientists published considerable material which they had obtained from Russian whalers who had continued to take an occasional specimen during the thirties of this century. They made a detailed study of the food of this whale, and they clearly showed that the herd which summered in the Sea of Okhotsk and wintered off Korea did not intermingle with the Siberian herd which wintered in the lagoons off Lower California. For the last 20 years or so, the species has enjoyed protection from whaling on an international basis. Since 1947 whaling scientists of the Canadian and American fishery agencies have published data principally on the recovery of the California herd, and to a degree have filled in some of the gaps in its life history. There is still a great deal to be learned, and it may be that some of the published observations will have to be revised or discarded. It is likely that the California gray whale is quite similar in many of its biological details to those which appear to be general in the commercially important species. California Gray Whale _Evolutionary Place_ It should be kept in mind, however, that this whale is the most primitive of the living baleen-bearing whales, and it seems to represent the point in the evolutionary sequence from which the two main groups diverged. The California gray whale is the sole survivor of a family of whales which in past eons was represented by many species. It has a smallish head with a limited filtering mechanism. Its dependence on foods which are found only near to shore is considered further evidence that it is primitive. Likewise its need for harbors to calve suggests that it has not lost its dependence on the nearshore habitat, even though it can safely cross the wide Pacific. The extremely restricted and separated distribution pattern of the whale is typical of an old, primitive species which persists either in its preferred ancestral home, or which occupies less desirable habitats into which it was forced by the more successful species. Recently gray whale remains were found in the Netherlands, and it is possible that it was exterminated in European waters by prehistoric whaling prior to the Ice Age. [Illustration: Gray whale breaching. _Photograph by T. J. Walker._] [Illustration: Another gray whale “spyhopping.” Notice the narrow tapering head, typical of the California gray whale. _Courtesy of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography._] _Geographic Distribution_