264 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



The first attempt to carry out systematic observations on the whales brought into 

 the whaHng stations appears to be that of Cocks (1886-90), who pubHshed a series 

 of papers on the catches at some Lapland whaling stations. He examined only a few 

 whales personally, however, and most of his information was derived from the 



whalers. 



Important work was done by True (1904), who examined some whales at a New- 

 foundland station in the course of his investigation of the specific identity of the 

 whalebone whales of the western North Atlantic. True's observations were mostly 

 confined to bodily measurements and the external characters, and were not so much 

 concerned with the breeding and other habits of whales. The paper consists of an 

 exhaustive examination of the specific characters of the Fin, Blue, Humpback, Little 

 Piked whale, and North Atlantic Right whale, and is based to a large extent on the 

 study of museum specimens. It contains excellent descriptions, however, of the external 

 characters of these northern whales, and summarizes in many cases the descriptions 

 given by other authors. The main object of the paper was to show that the whalebone 

 whales of the western section of the North Atlantic are specifically identical with those 

 of the eastern section. 



Later, some observations were made by Haldane (1904-10) on whales brought into 

 a Shetland whaling station. He published a series of brief papers dealing with various 

 notes on the general biology of the whales he examined. 



Lillie (1910) visited an Irish whaling station at Innishkea, Co. Mayo, and published 

 a paper which was principally concerned with some anatomical details. The same 

 author (19 15) visited a whaling station and two floating factories at New Zealand and 

 published some useful observations on the anatomy and habits of the Humpback. 



Burfield (191 2) and Hamilton (1914 and 191 5) made some observations at the Bell- 

 mullet station in Ireland. The observations included the total length of the whale and 

 twelve other measurements, notes on colour and some other external characters, and 

 records of the stomach contents, external and internal parasites and various patho- 

 logical specimens. A few foetuses also were measured. 



At almost the same time (in the 1913-14 season) observations of the same kind were 

 instituted, apparently for the first time in the southern hemisphere, by Major Barrett- 

 Hamilton, who examined nearly 300 whales at Leith Harbour, South Georgia, between 

 November 14, 1913, and January 16, 1914. His untimely death at South Georgia put 

 an end to this work, and his notes were handed over to Mr M. A. C. Hinton of the 

 British Museum (Natural History), who used them as the basis of an important paper 

 (1925) on whales and whaling, in which also the results of various previous authors 

 are summarized. In this paper all Barrett-Hamilton's observations are set out and 

 various problems discussed, in particular those relating to the breeding and migrations 

 of whales. Barrett-Hamilton's observations alone were not sufficiently extensive to 

 lead to any very general conclusions as to the habits of whales, but the chief value of 

 the paper lies in the fact that material from various other sources is brought together 

 and considered as a whole. As an example of this, extensive lists of foetuses from the 



