253 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



instances of recovered harpoons which Mr Perano related to the writer. They are 

 remarkable in that they seem to point to the fact that Humpbacks at any rate, if they 

 do not use fixed migratory routes, are at least in the habit of returning at intervals to 

 the same place. Before the introduction of the harpoon with the explosive grenade, 

 Mr Perano used a type of hand harpoon. This had an S-shaped head swivelled about 

 its centre at the end of a long shaft. With this harpoon it sometimes happened that 

 whales were lost and carried the harpoon away inside them. It was not, however, a 

 very successful pattern and its use was practically discontinued after the introduction 

 of the grenade. At any rate no whale was lost with one of these hand harpoons inside 

 it after the introduction of the grenade. Mr Perano stated that a Humpback had been 

 taken at Te-Awaiti, not very long before the visit of the writer to the station, with a 

 swivel head embedded in the musculature, and that this harpoon must have been fired 

 at least eighteen years previous to the capture of the whale. He was able to identify 

 the harpoon head as one of his own. 



When the explosive grenade was first introduced at Te-Awaiti a pattern was used 

 which had three flanges about its tip. Its use was discontinued when the triangular 

 grenade replaced it. The flanged pattern was not successful and was only used for one 

 season. Seven years after that season a Humpback whale was taken in which was found 

 a portion of a grenade of the flanged type. A harpoon grenade of that pattern was 

 not used at any other whaling station or factory. These two harpoon heads are now 

 in the Auckland Museum. 



LIST OF LITERATURE 



CoNDLiFFE, J. B., 1930. New Zealand in the Making. A survey of economic and social development. Allen 

 and Unwin, London. 



DiEFFENBACH, E., 1843. Travels in New Zealand, Vol. i. Murray, London. 



LiLLiE, D. G., 1915. Cetacea. British Antarctic (Terra Nova) Expedition, 1910. Zoology, i, No. 3, 

 British Museum. 



Matthews, L. Harrison, 1932. Lobster-Krill, Anomuran Crustacea that are the food of whales. Dis- 

 covery Reports, v, pp. 467-484. 



McNab, R., 1913. The Old Whaling Days. A history of Southern New Zealand from 1830 to 1840. 

 Whitcombe and Toombs, Melbourne and London. 



1914- T'rom Tasman to Marsden. Wilkie, Dunedin, N.Z. 



MoBius, K., 1893. Ueber den Fang und Verwerthung der Walfische in Japan. Sitzungsberichte der Koniglich 

 Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Lii, pp. 1-20. 



New Zealand Government Year Book, 1893. 



RiSTiNG, S., 1922. Av Hvalfangstens Historic. Kristiania. 



ScAMMON, C. M., 1874. The Marine Mammals of the North-Western Coast of North America. San Francisco. 



