258 



DISCOVERY REPORTS 



following two months. Further, all evidence goes to show that there was no easterly 

 movement of any importance during this time. The experience of the ' William Scoresby ' 

 this season was that whales of any kind were almost absent between 60 and 80 E during 

 the two periods spent in crossing that region. The whalers themselves believe that this 

 is a blank area; an opinion expressed by Hjort, Lie and Ruud (1934), who say that 

 there are not enough whales to make whaling profitable south of Kerguelen from the 

 end of January onwards. Although several factory ships passed through this region in 

 January 1935, none stopped long, and for the rest of the season the waters to the east of 

 Enderby Land were deserted. 



It seems, therefore, that during this season, 1934-35, from January onwards, Blue 

 whales from waters off Enderby Land moved steadily westwards, reaching as far as 

 1 5 E by the end of March. This movement was followed and exploited by a number of 

 factory ships. 



The very high percentage, 8-05 per cent, of recoveries of marks from Blue whales 

 marked by the 'William Scoresby' during 1934-35 is due to the marking of whales in 

 this stream of movement. Between 50 and 40 E twenty-nine Blue whales were marked 

 from 21 January to 1 February. This number must be understood to include all those 

 whales carrying marks logged as protruding and considered to be effective only during 

 the season of marking, and is actually six more than it would be if estimated in the 

 manner explained above (p. 254) for arriving at the number of effectively marked whales 

 in Table II. Three whales carrying protruding marks were killed during that season 

 and so are included in both totals. Of the twenty-nine marked whales, two were 

 females accompanied by calves and two others were calves. These four whales would 

 be neglected by the whalers and so, as far as figures for this season are concerned, 

 may be disregarded. There were thus twenty-five marked Blue whales available for 

 capture in the area mentioned: seven of these were killed before the end of the season. 

 This is 28 per cent and, it must be realized, is a minimum figure, for some marks may 

 have escaped detection after the capture of the whale. 



TABLE II 

 Marked Blue whales killed in each group 



