I 



THE HABITS OF FIN WHALES' 



By E. R. Gunther 

 (Plate XXXIII; Text-figs. 1-7) 



INTRODUCTION 



N the present paper various observations of whales, as they have been seen at sea, have been put 



together in the hope that they will contribute to a broader understanding of the relations of the 

 living whale to its environment. The observations were made from a modern whale catcher, the 

 Skua, while engaged upon whale-marking work'^ in the neighbourhood of South Georgia during the 

 two months 11 December 1936 to 9 February 1937. The author had a stop-watch but no cinemato- 

 graph camera, and in consequence many of the conclusions made in the following pages are open to 

 amendment. 



The difficulties of making observations on living whales are many. They show themselves above 

 water for only brief periods, and their specialization for life in the water renders direct comparison 

 with the behaviour of land mammals hazardous. Opportunities of watching them at close quarters 

 have usually been restricted to vessels engaged in whaling ; on board which life has to be lived to be 

 understood. True (1903), who has used a camera on board a catcher, has remarked ' . . .the difficulty 

 of getting the picture itself is so great that one's faculties are entirely absorbed in the proceeding and 

 there is little opportunity for observing particulars. The pitching and rolling of the steamer in the 

 restless waters is very disconcerting, and not less so the fact that the point at which the whale will 

 appear is uncertain and the length of time it will remain in view very brief.' It is noteworthy that 

 True's photographs were secured in calm weather. 



A research ship has certain advantages over the commercial catcher. She is on the whaling grounds 

 for longer periods, and when following a school, the chase does not terminate when one whale has 

 been hit. While the firing of marking guns has a disturbing effect upon whales, the noise is not to be 

 compared with the report of a commercial harpoon gun and probably gives correspondingly less shock. 

 The motion of a catcher is, of course, the same whether she is actually used for catching whales or not. 

 She completes a roll in 4 sec. and this means that the opportunity to fire marks occurs momentarily 

 every 2 sec. when the ship is either at the crest or the trough. Another factor making for great dif- 

 ficulty in the collection of scientific data in the Sub-Antarctic is the incessant spraying of cold water 

 over the gun platform so that on many days it is impossible to use pencil and paper. 



The report is divided into three parts and it concerns only the habits of the Fin whale {Balaenoptera 



1 This paper was nearly completed by the late Mr Gunther in 1939. His death on active service, however, took place in 

 1940, and the MS. was not available until after the war. The text and illustrations are printed almost as he left them, except 

 for two passages which seemed to need revision. Thus the first sentence has been written in place of three short opening 

 paragraphs, and on p. i2i the two paragraphs beginning, 'Over all the periods of observation. . .', and ending, 'breathing 

 intervals of different whales', replace a passage equivalent to rather less than a page of text (together with three text-figures) 

 in which the data on the frequency of blowing were further discussed. It is believed that these two paragraphs summarize 

 the author's line of thought. He could no doubt have adjusted both the original passages by a few amendments, but to revise 

 them now in full might involve a departure from his intentions. Elsewhere in the text only trivial editorial work has been 

 needed. Among the illustrations the author had provisionally chosen nine photographs. Of these the six reproduced in 

 Plate XXXni are the most suitable for reproduction and seem to meet the author's requirements.— f^^. 



2 See Rayner, 1940. 



