Practical Programming, 2nd Edition

Storing and Accessing Data in Lists

Table 8, ​Gray Whale Census​, shows the number of gray whales counted near the Coal Oil Point Natural Reserve in a two-week period starting on February 24, 2008.^[4]

Table 8. Gray Whale Census

Day	Number of Whales	Day	Number of Whales
1	5	8	6
2	4	9	4
3	7	10	2
4	3	11	1
5	2	12	7
6	3	13	1
7	2	14	3

Using what we have seen so far, we would have to create fourteen variables to keep track of the number of whales counted each day:

To track an entire year’s worth of observations, we would need 365 variables (366 for a leap ...