THE HUMPBACK WHALE 



37 



mentioned one hundred and fifteen [caught during the period August istto October 8th 

 191 1 at Port Alexander] only six had white flippers, but this in the northern hemisphere 

 is the rule". This proportion is 5-2 per cent and does not greatly differ from the pro- 

 portion with white flippers recorded in the present series, which is 16 per cent of males 

 or 7-5 per cent of all whales. 



Goodall (191 3) records that all the whales he saw at Durban were of the marble- 

 bellied class, and in consequence Hinton postulates that from' the South Georgian 

 feeding grounds the black-bellied schools migrate up the west coast of Africa, the 

 marble-bellied schools up the east coast, and the white-bellied ones perhaps up the 

 east coast of America. The present series gives no support to this suggestion, because of 

 the four Humpbacks, of which colour notes are available, taken at Saldanha Bay on the 

 west coast of South Africa, three belonged to the class "marble-bellied" and one to 

 the class "black-bellied"; and of the eleven from Durban six were black-bellied, three 

 white-bellied and two marble-bellied. Further, Olsen (1914-15) says, "these [three 

 colour] varieties do not keep apart in small lots but mingle together. Thus of one pair 

 one would often be black and the other light bellied ", and " having regard to the extra- 

 ordinary variability of the Humpback in the matter of colour, one can scarcely attribute 

 much systematic importance to this character". 



With this last sentence one cannot but agree, adding only the reservation that in 

 different parts of the world the proportions of the various colour classes appear to differ 

 more or less constantly within the schools, in which all the colour classes occur and are 

 mixed. Unfortunately, it is now impossible, owing to the small numbers of Humpbacks 

 taken on the southern whaling grounds, to investigate the statement made by Morch 

 (191 1) and reported by Risting (1912), which appears to be based upon hearsay and not 

 upon direct observation, that the schools at South Georgia were commonly each com- 

 posed of whales of one colour group only. 



HAIR 

 Hair occurs in the Humpback whale on the dorsal 

 surface of the snout, on the chin and on the man- 

 dibles. Data relating to the hairs are available from 

 seven Humpback whales only, and are tabulated in 

 Table XI. On the snout the hairs are rooted in 

 tubercles, three or four on each side of the blow- 

 holes, about five in the median line, and two rows, an 

 inner and an outer, on each side of the edge of the 

 snout, with from four to fourteen hairs in each row. 

 The tubercles of the inner and outer marginal rows 

 are frequently arranged alternately. Fig. 39 shows the 

 arrangement of the hairs on the snout in the foetus 

 of whale no. 3573. The lowest number of hairs on 

 one side of the snout recorded in the present series is nine, and the highest is twenty- 



Fig. 39. Humpback whale. Arrange- 

 ment of hair on the dorsal surface of 

 the snout of foetus of whale no . 3573 . 



